Frozen flame
by Crazy laughter
Summary: A mysterious stranger wants to join the Teen Titans. He seems to have something to do with Raven's past. He seems to be unable to disobey Raven, but has some kind of grudge over her.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: For the record: I am not going to hook Raven up with this guy in black. I just re-read the beginning and even I suspected that it would happen, so I changed it a little. It still might seem so, but it´s just your wishfull thinking. **

**This has just been bothering me.**

**Crazy laughter **

**Chapter 1**

Raven was reading a book and drinking a cup of herbal tea in the common room of the tower. She was relaxing quite a bit since no one had interrupted her in quite a while. She tried not to think about the fact that she had to resort on threatening them with a trip to another dimension. She flipped a page and then sighed as she heard footsteps coming from the hall leading to the common room 'I knew it was too good to last. Wonder who gets to spend the rest of the day in the seventh hell' she thought as she prepared for the distraction by marking the spot she was on the book with her finger.

"Hi, you're Raven, right?" said the calm voice stranger in a black overcoat. He stood right in front of her and offered a hand to her. 'How did he get in here without tripping any alarms? Is that Beast Boy? He doesn't have green hands, so probably not. He might just be an assassin with a sunny disposition. Well...'

"HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE!" Raven shouted as she jumped up, dropping the book from her hands that were now engulfed in her black aura. "There's really no need for this…" the stranger stated in an amused manner, when Raven levitated off the floor. Raven's eyes flamed red and she shot a claw of her aura at the stranger with the intention of hitting him against the wall.

Instead the aura seemed to dissipate into him. And instead of sending him back, it tugged Raven towards the stranger with quite an amount of speed. Raven hit the floor where the stranger had stood a second ago. He had calmly stepped back as he had seen Raven flying at him. He looked down at Raven from the depths of his hood, which concealed his face completely. "Why did you just do that?"

The rest of the Titans ran to the room just then and saw a figure dressed in black standing over a downed Raven. Certain assumptions were made and they attacked.

"TITANS, GO!" The leader of the group shouted and the Titans were off. Starfire lifted in to the air and sent a couple of starbolts at the stranger. She tried to hit the ground beneath his feet to knock him back from Raven, but her starbolts hit him square in the chest and he only staggered a step back. He held out a hand and sent a white ball of energy at the Tamarian with a an angry looking flick of the wrist, it hit her right in the chest as well and sent her through the metal wall.

By now Raven was already climbing to her feet and flying away from the newfound nemesis. Robin was currently charging at the man who was now busy blocking all of his attacks. None of them connected though. When the Boy Wonder decided to draw his bo-staff the stranger also drew a similar staff, in black. They kept fighting with the staffs with the stranger mirroring Robins every move. Until Robin was able to deliver a quick jab to his ribs with his left hand while keeping him busy with his staff. The stranger retaliated with a football style kick to the Boy Wonder's ribs with his right leg. Robin was sent hurling at Cyborg who was charging his arm cannon to strike the foe. Robin hit the prone form of steel and man combined with a resounding thud, and they both fell to the floor.

"Damn…" said the man dressed in black. The staff had disappeared after the kick. Raven was standing back from the action because she was quite sure that her powers wouldn't work properly against the man. He stood in silence and looked around from the hole in the wall to where Starfire was lying knocked out from his blast, and to the forms of Cyborg and Robin who where just getting up, and finally to Raven who was glaring at him angrily. He stopped there and stared back at Raven for a second before snapping his fingers toward the hole in the wall and then speaking to Raven and pointing to Robin: "I'm sure you can cure him."

He didn't disappear like most of the heroes or villains. He wasn't engulfed in darkness or disappear in a flash of light. He just seemed to fade out of the world in a blink of an eye, leaving only a fading shimmer and a hole in the wall to even prove his existence.

Starfire flew out of the wall seeming quite surprised and infuriated but without a scratch on her. Her hands and eyes shone green as she looked about the room. Seeing only her friends, she calmed down and flew to Robin just in time to catch him as he almost fell to the floor. "Robin! Friend Raven, you can help him, can you not?"

Raven moved to the side of Robin that was not occupied by Starfire and looked at his injured side. Devastated, to say the least. Five of his ribs on his right side had been broken; by the blow the strange attacker had dealt. Raven started to repair the internal injuries with a bunch muttered words, internal injuries were much more pressing than the broken ribs. The soft glow from Ravens hands helped the Boy Wonder breath as she was repairing his collapsed lung. Raven only managed to heal most of the massive internal injuries. Leaving the ribs for later. She had never been good at repairing broken bones though. "Why did he just leave after pummelling all of us to the ground?", Cyborg asked more to himself than anyone else in the room. None of them tried to answer.

"My powers didn't work on him. I think he came here for me", Raven said in her monotone voice after doing what she could to keep Robin alive "Why did he attack us like this?" asked Starfire with tears in her eyes. "I'm more concerned about Robin right now. Get him to the med lab, Starfire. Be careful, he has broken ribs. Cyborg, see what you can do for him, I'm drained for now." Cyborg nodded and started following a frantic Starfire down the hall. Starfire was carrying Robin; he was practically flown through the building by Starfire. Raven sighed and took out his communicator.

Beast Boy was out in the town with his camouflage ring on, so that he looked just like an average teenager. He was drinking coffee at a small coffee shop without a care in the world. Then a stranger in a black coat, sat next to him.

"Hi", He simply stated and looked him over, head to toe. Beast Boy freaked out and put his coffee down. "Look, buddy. I don't swing that way. So - " The stranger cut him off by saying "Beast Boy, I presume." It was more of a statement than a question, and Beast Boy was stunned beyond words

"How… How did you…" The stranger did not have his hood on. There was a boy about his age staring at him with bright white hair and cold eyes. "You'll know soon enough. Could you tell your teammates that I don't like it when people attack me and only act according to the situation when someone does? Tell the red haired one in particular that I am sorry about overreacting."

"What -" His communicator started bleeping. He looked down and grabbed it. He looked up with the communicator in hand. The boy was gone and Beast Boy wasn't even that sure that he had even been there in the first place. The coffee he had been drinking was still there though.

He flipped the com open and saw Raven looking at him "Get back to the tower. Now!" Beast Boy was utterly confused. Well, better get back to the tower anyways. That creepy monotone was more than enough to make him fear for his life.

When he got there he found the common room looking like a battleground and with a hole in the wall. "Was this what he was talking about down in the café? Guys! Where are you?"

He ran around the tower looking for them. He found them just where he didn't want to.

"What happened to Robin?" Was all he could say when he saw the grave scene in front of him. Robin was lying on a hospital bed with the steady beeping of the EEG machine signalling that he was alive. Raven was barely able to stand but she didn't want to show it so she was leaning against a wall. Starfire was sitting by Robin's bed and asking Cyborg and Raven every five seconds if he was going to be okay. Both of them answered calmly "yes" every time

"Wish I could get my hands on that hlorbog who did this to him!" Starfire fumed when her hands and eyes glowed green and her hands burnt the arms out of the chair she was sitting on. "Calm down Star. We're gonna get him for this." Stated Cyborg while gritting his teeth from anger. A spark flew from his neck because of his agitated state.

Beast Boy was thinking if he should tell the others about his encounter with the attacker. Actually what was so important about what he had said that they needed to know about it '_I don't like it when people attack me and only act according to the situation'_, His memory bitched at him. 'It has to be done'

"I think he came to talk to me after the attack" Silence greeted the statement. Raven decided that it was unbearable and asked him to elaborate. She said it in her regular monotone. Beast Boy started squirming under the gazes of his teammates. "Well I was getting some coffee uptown… and he sat down next to me and seemed to check me out and I got creeped out and - " " Just get to the point. What did he say?" Raven cut in. Beast Boy blushed and started spelling out from memory: "_'Tell your teammates that I don't like being attacked and only act according to the situation_'" He paused at this and then said "'_And tell the red haired one that I am sorry about overreacting'" _Starfire looked utterly shocked "He said he was sorry?" Her face scrunched in thought "Villains don't do that, do they?" Star looked at Raven for an answer. Raven shrugged and said "Not usually. But what did he mean about that 'I don't like being attacked' thing?" Beast Boy shrugged and said "Dunno" Cyborg looked thoughtful and then asked "Raven, you were there first. Did he attack you first?"

Raven thought about for a while and then blushed in the confines of her cloak. "Actually…" She sighed deeply and her shoulders slumped. "No, he didn't. My powers didn't work on him and I was hurled to the floor by them. Then you came in… Sorry, but I really need to sleep" 'and meditate' she added to herself as she was walking to her room.

She entered her room and threw her cloak on the bed and started to levitate over her bed chanting "Azarath…Methrion…Zenthos"

Down in Jump City there was a bank being robbed, not a single alarm was sounded so the Teen Titans knew nothing about it; just as it should be. Jinx didn't like it. It seemed too easy. Something was bound to go wrong. She was expecting the Teen Titans to burst through the doors any second. She didn't even have her teammates with her this time. She had insisted on doing this alone, she was starting to doubt her judgement on this.

Just as she had almost assured herself that everything was going to go smoothly, there was a voice from somewhere in the plentiful shadows of the banks entrance hall. "So… You're a villain, eh?"

She spun around, as the voice seemed to come right behind her. She tried to place the voice, but it seemed to echo from every shadow in the hall and it was impossible. It surely wasn't the Boy Wonder; he couldn't do something like that to his voice. Raven could and would do that to her voice, but the voice was too masculine and not even a bit demonic, so it wasn't her. Starfire or Cyborg don't do that kind of sneaky stuff. So, who was he? Red-X? No, there was no voice synthesizer. She didn't even think it could be Beast boy.

Sighing she answered "Yes. You're not an hero, are you?" She had to keep him talking to know where to throw a hex or two. "No, I don't think so. I've been thinking: which is better; to be a hero, or to be a villain? How's life treating you, beautiful?" The voice still seemed to be everywhere, but it also seemed to get closer.

Jinx started to get afraid. Any hero would have attacked by now and a villain would have done that too. This guy was just creepy. Creeping up on her like a… common rapist.

"What are you going to do with me? Show your self!" Her voice was shaky from fear. And even though she didn't see him she knew that he had stopped in his tracks at the sound of her voice. "I just want to talk. I'm not going to rape you or anything even like that." He stepped out of the shadows right in front of her, "Though you are quite a stunning woman. I'm just loving the eyes..."

She jumped in surprise and threw a hex bolt at him. It hit him with no visible effect. He just looked at her surprised face and she threw another hex bolt at him. During the flash of light she noticed his bright white hair and the smile that was playing on his lips. The hex bolt hit him again with no visible effect. He just looked at her with the smile still in place. It just widened when he lifted his hand and shot a similar pink energy ball at her. She wasn't able to dodge it as it followed her as she rolled to the side. It had very different effects on her though...

She didn't notice anything at first and drew her hand up to charge another hex. The mystery assailant just ignored it and said in a deadpan tone: "You know, I learned an interesting fact from the heroes. They don't seem to like physical violence…", Jinxes focus fluttered away when a warm tickly feeling started forming in her lower abdomen. The forming energy faded away, "…So, I changed tactics. You see, this makes you as co-operative and unable to defend yourself as a good kick to the head. And there's absolutely no pain involved. Quite the opposite, in fact."

Jinx fell to her knees, as the sensation grew unbearable. "What are you doing to me?"

The man crouched next to her and whispered to her ear "Like you wouldn't know. I'm only actually releasing something that's been inside you for a long time. Don't even try to say that you'd prefer the usual beating from the super-heroes." She looked at him. She tried to glare at him but it seemed very hard to focus her eyes on anything. "You - Oh god… You perverted bastard!"

He sat down on the floor next to her. She collapsed on the floor while panting hard. She noticed that his eyes were like the ones on some birds of prey: Bright yellow, on a black base. They were glowing brightly in the dark. The smile was still there. "You should tell me how to trip some of the alarms you disabled. Take your time. I'm not going anywhere."

She tried to stop herself, but couldn't help it. 'Damn this feels wrong, but so _GOOD_.' she though as she started purring and stretching on the floor, very much like a cat. The man laughed and started scratching her behind the ear. She reacted to this by purring louder and bending her head towards his touch. 'This is so perverted. I'm not a cat'

"This is so weird… I think it's time to call in the cavalry" As he said that he raised his hand that wasn't scratching Jinx. With a bright flash of light, the doors of the bank blew out in the street causing the alarms of the bank start ringing. "Hey, pussycat." He said while Jinx's head was resting on his lap. She didn't answer because she was certain that only thing that would come out of her mouth was a meow. "umm…" She managed to get out through the intensifying waves of pleasure wracking her body.

"I think I'm going to go meet the heroes. Don't miss me too much…" He chuckled and gently lifted her head out of his lap and started for the huge gap in wall that used to be the doors to the bank.

He got outside just as the Titans appeared from one of Raven's portals. They started fanning out on his sides a second later. "Now, now! Let's not do this again. Hear me out: First of all, I was not the to attack this place of currency and valuable items. It was the pink haired girl in there." He looked around the group of heroes and seemed to count them in his mind. "Where's the short guy?"

Starfire's fists clenched and her eyes were glowing in bright green "You dare to even act not knowing! You know that you almost killed him and you're going to pay for your actions against us!" The white haired teenager looked shocked "What do you mean 'almost killed him'. I barely even touched him. Humans can't be that frail!"

Raven spoke to the boy in her usual monotone, but there was an dangerous edge to it "Your not from earth, are you?" He seemed annoyed by slipping something out by accident. He sighed deeply and nodded. "Why are you here?" Raven asked him. He squirmed a little and looked at the heroes with a blush on his face "I-" He cut off by a loud scream from the bank "MEEEOOOW!"

The boy looked at Raven as if knowing that she knew exactly what happened. And she did. She had felt the rush of mixed emotions from the bank. And she blushed deeply from they're effect. She staggered back a little at the force of the powerful emotions flushing over her. "You sick bastard..." She hissed, as he looked very proud of himself. "What? I stopped the villain and all is well in the world… Right?"

Starfire looked shocked "What have you done to the poor woman in there?" Hawk-like eyes shifted to look at her. Then he looked over to Cyborg and Beast Boy. "She can't be that naïve, can she?" He asked the other titans present, "I made her feel good, Star. A better solution than beating her senseless." Starfire still looked confused. He smiled at her. "I think you'll learn better if I show you…" His hand started glowing in a soft shade of pink. "Don't you dare!" Raven hissed at him. The light dissipated at her words.

He looked at her, pouting like a child. "Yes, m'lady" He said in a dangerous hiss. 'Odd… he obeyed me. Like he was forced to.' Raven put this thought aside as irrelevant for the moment as he stood up from his mockery of a bow. "I should go get the villain out here" He stated and stormed in to the building.

Cyborg and Beast Boy looked at Raven for answers. Starfire looked thoughtful. "What did he mean about the 'feeling good'?" Raven looked at her only female friend. She's so innocent sometimes… Okay, she was always innocent "I will explain it to you later" Raven said, blushing from the thought of the conversation ahead. 'I hate this guy already'

He appeared from the building with Jinx slung over his shoulder. She didn't struggle at all in his grasp. He started coming down the stairs to them, but then stopped halfway down the stairs. He looked at them with his weird eyes. Then he seemed to realize something, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He stayed like that for a couple of seconds. Then he snapped his eyes open and they were not the same eyes anymore. "I always forget to fix them. People seem to be afraid of my eyes. I still don't know why though… Well, anyways, what to do with this one?" He slapped Jinxes butt. She winced and started squirming in his grasp. "You idiot! You almost broke my ass!" He dropped her down on her feet "Oh, come on! I can't help it if you are so frail! That's your problem, not mine!" Jinx looked furious "I'm not frail! You're just too rough on people!" She screamed with fire in her eyes.

He looked hurt, then thoughtful. He looked at The Teen Titans, who were looking at him with barely disguised anger in their eyes. Even Raven's eyes seemed to have an edge to them. He looked scared and vulnerable for a second. His eyes fluttered from the stormy looking dark blue to their natural state. He didn't seem to notice.

He looked back at Jinx and said, "You're right. I don't know the extent of my powers yet. That's one reason for me being here. I'm sorry if I hurt you." He turned to the Teen Titans. "And I'm sorry if I hurt the colourful guy back in your place of residence" Jinx was taken back with the hurt and loneliness present in his eyes. This guy clearly was not from earth. No normal guy would have shown their emotions like that.

She really was messed up. This was the kind of situation where a normal girl wouldn't find herself in. 'Why should I care. He just mind raped me. I should hate him for that.' She did try to hate him, but even when her logical side said that he had violated her. She just couldn't just find it in herself to hate him. "_I'm only actually releasing something that's been inside you for a long time"_

Now, when she actually thought about it. She had actually purred during that 'thing' that he did. She knew that she wasn't that innocent. She had been around and she had had a big O before. This was different though. It had felt so… natural? Like a new base instinct, nothing like an orgasm, but something else... and better. And why did she purr then?

**What? You really don't think that the eyes don't mean anything** She heard the voice of the boy in her head. 'I wish I knew his name' She thought. **It's Du'grel in my home world, but I guess it's gonna be something tacky like "Nightshadow" in this world. I wish they would stop with the IDIOTIC names in this world. Why do they even need them? I know for a fact that people fear the unknown more than something that they can name.**

Outside the conversation in her head he seemed not to mind her a second thought. He barely even looked at her. Actually only one or two seconds had passed, but thoughts were a lot faster to speak than words. Telepathy's funny that way.

**Listen. I'll let you escape now, because I don't think you deserve this. I've seen the outset of your mind, and it's not evil to the least. I'm sorry for the intrusion by the way. Why are they after you anyway?** How was she supposed to answer? She wasn't a telepath and this was all new to her. **Just think of it. Put it up to the front of your mind and I'll know it. Feel it. See it. Smell it if you want.**

She didn't have another way out of this. So she though about how the H.I.V.E had helped her. Given her a home and a purpose in life. She thought about her mother and the damage that her powers had caused to everyone she had ever loved. She thought about the early days when her mother had smiled at her and said that she loved her. Her sound had been so loving and tender. That didn't last long. She -

**I've heard enough, please stop. Please…** His thoughts seemed saddened and somehow forced. **Hit the ground under my feet with one of your hexes when I tell you to… Oh, I get it! You jinx people with your hexes. Therefore, Jinx. The name fits you. And it also means a cat. Is that what the hair is. Jinxes have ears kinda like that… Or are they even called Jinxes? Jinx? Or are they lynxes?...**

'Your getting off the point' She thought. She was getting the hang of it. **Sorry. Telepathy's hard to control at times. I came here to get some control over my many powers.** **I could actually destroy this whole planet if I wanted to. Don't know how, but I could.**

He looked down to Raven with murder in his eyes "Stop trying to read my mind, witch!" His eyes flared and Raven fell to the floor. "**Now"** He said in a firm command. He shouted it out loud to Raven and telepathically to Jinx. It was a perfect moment. Raven was down and the other titans were looking at her. And he seemed to be distracted with Raven. This was a perfect moment for an escape attempt, even if Du'grel would not be in on it.

She shot a quick hex at his feet and the ground under him crumbled, sending him stumbling down the stairs. She could swear that he had a smirk on his face. He hit his head on one of the steps. **Ouch! And you say I'm rough on you.** **Run into the bank.**

She shot up the stairs and leaped into the bank as Cyborg's sonic cannons blast whizzed past her head. 'Now what?' She said to him. **You'll see…** he answered. She could hear the snicker in his thoughts. 'He could be planning on killing me for all I know.'

There was a wordless shout of anger, which seemed to linger in the air unnaturally long. Then a very bright white light was filling the hall…

He was a very confusing man. First, he hurt Robin very much like a villain would, but then he apologized like a hero. He was not to be blamed. I also have problems controlling my powers when interacting with my friends. "The bone crushing hugs they call them." Oh, how ever so much amusing it is to see the look of fear on their little faces when I rush in for a hug.

Everything was very wrong. Starfire was giggling for no apparent reason. And Beast Boy… well, he transformed into a cat and disappeared into a dark alley. Cyborg was perched on a street lamp whistling the tune of the A-team.

This all happened while the alien boy was charging up to attack the retreating back of Jinx. His eyes shone brighter than ever. Power was seeping out of him, practically melting the ground beneath him. There was an almost inaudible humming that made your brain itch. It had a rhythm to it, like a generator charging up.

His black overcoat suddenly turned white and lighting danced on its surface for a second. Then it was oddly silent. He had an oddly calm look on his face. The other titans started to return to normal. Cyborg fell off his perch and groaned. That's when the boy shouted a word that even Raven or Starfire could not recognize. The power that had been building up in him shot out of him.

It was not like an ordinary energy blast. It had a mind of its own. It shot out of him and gathered above his head in an orb of lightning. He sent it flying with a word.

Then the world was filled with white light.

**AN: This is my ****first fic ever**** so be harsh if you wish because I want to learn and feedback is what makes writers evolve. So please review. Thank you. If you liked it, don't be shy to review either. Otherwise I could get all depressed and not post anything at all! And I... I'll stop writing now before I do something I'll regret...**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

He woke up feeling sore all around. 'Note to self: Do not get sentimental, EVER AGAIN!' He thought as he surveyed his surroundings as well as anyone could without opening their eyes. And that was pretty well in his case.

He heard a steady humming sound near the end of his bed. 'Sounds like a energy flow. Very controlled. Someone is levitating.' "Raven?" The humming stopped and he heard how her feet hit the ground and the whisper of her cloak moving. "You're awake" He sneered and opened his eyes. "My, my. You sound surprised" He tried to sit up. Several metal alloy straps stopped him.

"We need to talk" Raven said with his hood up and her arms crossed. He looked at his restrains and snapped the one keeping his right hand tied to the bed. He scratched his nose. "Okay. First of all my name is Du'grel and as you know I'm not from around here", He looked at her head to toe, "You do know that you're wearing a leotard?" Raven was taken aback by how unaffected he was by the fact that he woke up tied to a bed and by the way he could see that she was wearing a leotard even through her cloak. 'He's only trying to control the conversation' "I am aware of that fact. Why are you here?"

"We never really covered that, did we? Simply put, I came here to join the Titans to -", His jaw clenched shut and his eyes flared. He closed his eyes and mumbled alien words. He then opened them again and his jaw opened agin. "I just want to make up for a couple of things I´ve done in the past." He laid down on the bed and let out a breath. "But I guess that's not going to happen now, with Robin… And Jinx I guess…"

'Hope I didn't kill anyone…' Raven was able to catch the stray thought flouting out of his mind. She had tried to get in his head every single time they met. It was like poking at a hornet nest. There was a dozen of different strays of thoughts flying around in his head at the same time and they all blended together in to a unfatomaneable jumble of words and sounds. None of them were in the same language and all of them didn´t even sound like him. He definetly was a telepath if nothing else.

"I see you have not been able to heal… that… guy…" He was looking at the ceiling and probably through it. "I think I should know their names. I'm sick of only knowing you" Raven quirked an eyebrow "Then, how do you know me? I don´t think we ever met." He smirked widely and looked back at her eyes. "That´s what you think. And really, a leotard, why in gods name would anyone wear a leotard?"

Beast Boy burst out laughing right outside the door and there was a thud when he hit the floor still laughing. The over stressed vein on her forehead popped up and she mentally threw Beast Boy in to a wall. "I have to work on keeping my opinions to myself. Can I get up now? You know that these won't hold me down?" She turned around to see him ripping the special restraints made to withstand his supposed strength. 'Those could have held Cyborg down. Is the air colder in here all of the sudden?'

"Yes, it is colder than usual. I have a tendency to drain energy around me. I think it's a survival mechanism of sorts. " He was dusting himself off.

on "You… Did you just read my mind?!" He looked at her clearly amused and then started talking to her like she was a child "No, Raven. Like I said, I drain energies around me. And thoughts are basically only complex bursts of energy", He shrugged and leaned on the wall, "Or maybe I did read your mind. I don't really know."

He slapped rubbed his hands together "Right then! I'll go see about Robin" He stepped into the wall he was leaning on and disappeared. Raven also disappeared in a pool of darkness. She appeared in the room where Robin was being kept.

Du'grel was standing at the end of the hospital bed looking down at him. "I presume that you can't fully heal him", Raven nodded, "He will be a crippled ex-hero if nothing is done?" He continued. Raven nodded. He nodded back and lifted his hood to hide his face. He turned to face her, only his yellow hawk-eyes shone from the shadows of the hood. "Okay…" He said in a plain tone.

He shot a small white ball of energy at the window left of him. It melted a perfectly round hole in the window. It faded into the distance He shimmered into nothing and appeared right in front of Raven. His eyes bored into hers. "Why did you even bring me to the tower? You could have just left the authorities take care of me?" Raven pushed him away. "Why…", She was cut off by a suspicious flicker of light in the corner of her eye.

She turned to the window just in time to see the white ball of light flying back towards the tower. It was skimming the water and thus raising two huge pillars of water behind it. "1…" Du´grel said with a electronic crackle in his voice. Raven realized that he was imitating a rockets launch countdown. He was a weird one. The energy ball started rising up straight towards the window. It seemed to get brighter by the second. "2…" The ball suddenly diwed in to the sea and shot up right before hitting the rocks. It had grown in to a man sized mini-sun and it hoverde just outside the window. Du´grel walked to the window and reached a hand through the fist sized hole that he had melted in to it. "3." The ball nudged a little and hit his stretched out hand.

A blinding bolt of lightning shot up his arm and then spread out onto the overcoat. His jacket had turned white and looked like it was sewn from tiny strands of lightning. His eyes shone so brightly that it hurt to even look at them. "I'm ready to heal him now if you want me to" Du'grel said in a voice that was booming like thunder. It had a subharmonic edge to it that made the glass of mustard on Robins nightstand shatter.

The other titans slammed into the room just then and Cyborg asked "You get away from him!" He looked at the cannon arm with his radiating eyes. "That's cool... It's sonic, right? How come does it shoot a beam of light then?

Beast Boy, with his more keen electrostatic senses, put his hand on Cyborgs right arm and shook his head looking straight into his eyes. Starfire looked into the room behind their shoulders. "What is happening in the room where Robin is currently situated. Two hawk-eyes met two emerald orbs. He snickered under the confines of his hood. He made a low bow to Starfire. "Hello, Koriand'r. I am prepared to heal your Robin, with your permission of course, princess of the glorious Tamaran… Been there actually. Liked it. Nice people. Didn't even try to kill me once."

Starfire blinked. Once. Twice. "Uhmm… If you are able to cure friend Robin, please do" He just nodded and straightened up from his bow. He walked to Robins bed and raised his hands over his chest. "Raven, could you shield Cyborg a little. I might fry him with this" Raven nodded and moved to Cyborgs side, encasing them both in a bubble of black energy. _'Why do we trust him? He has only hurt us and he did totally destroy that bank. I might never trust him, but I don't want him as an enemy. Judging from what I've seen, he might be even worse than Slade if he goes down that road. Not smarter, but more destructive. He doesn't know his limits."_

He started singing low in his throath and his hands started glowing crimson red. His words fueled the light and it started flickering like a flame and it started to let out a thick red smoke. His singing filled the room. It was slow-paced and soothing, like a lullaby you sing to a scared child to sooth him after a bad dream. Raven saw Starfires eyes starting to drift closed. Beast Boy was already curled up on the floor asleep. He had collapsed there due to his weakness to any kind of mental suggestioning. Cyborg was as unfazed as her and was staring intently at the small screen on his arm. "The electro magnetics are off the charts and there's a lot of subatomic particles in the air" Raven sighed "In English…" Raven said in a irritated tone. Cyborg looked dead serious as he said "As he said: He is like an nuclear reactor"

The red mist started flowing down from his hands and covered him in a wall of red glowing mist. Then the song picked up pace and the mist started swirling with it. Raven was certain she saw shadows dance above Robin. One shadow in particular was getting clearer and clearer. It was a frame of a short boy in a mini-cape and mostly gel-based hair standing up defying gravity. It was Robin. He was dancing ghoulishly with the tempo of the song, his stance ghoulish, arms flailing around limply. He picked up the tempo of the song again and the shadow Robin became a clearly recognisable outline of Robin.

He stopped singing and the shadow Robin stopped dancing and regained his usual confident posture. The figure looked down at the sorcerer. Du'grel spoke a few soft words to the figure. It nodded. He let out a final word and the red smoke retreated in to the shadow and gave it form and then it laid itself down inside Robin. Falling through his flesh and bones and directly into him.

Robins eyes shot open and he stared at the white coated man standing next to him. He lowered his hood "Welcome back, Robin: The Boy Wonder" Du'grel waved his hand and smiled. Robin looked around. He saw Starfire leaning on the wall snoring and slowly sliding down the wall. Beat Boy was still fast asleep and Raven and Cyborg were encased in Ravens black energy. A thought started to form in his mind.

"Lets not start this again. Ask Raven am I attacking you. Do not jump to conclusions again, please." He looked utterly exhausted. Robin looked to Raven, still wary of the person next to him. Raven dropped the shield after getting the ok from Cyborg. She just nodded her head and tried to kick Beast Boy awake. He only flipped over and groaned, still snoring. "We'll have to make him laugh again."

Robin got out of the bed in one fluid motion. He didn't even seem sore, actually, he was jittery like a cocaine addict, and his hair was even more shot up than usual. He stood there looking again intently at Du'grel. Du'grel was swaying on his feet from exhaustion, his coat flickering from black to white like a broken lamp. His eyes and hair were glowing only faintly.

Robin walked to Raven. "Why is he not in jail? He attacked us and almost got away with it!" Raven looked at the eyes which were strained so open that they looked completely round. He was full of energy. She glanced at the half-sleeping form of Du'grel. His energy. We owe him. "He didn't attack us. I mean; he did not make the first move against us. We actually attacked him first, now that I think about it"

Robin looked dumbstruck. He hated losing, and mistakes were only losses of judgement. He looked at the almost sleeping figure leaning on the wall. "But-" "He was able to heal you. Not me" No, now Robin was truly dumbstruck. "Was it that bad? But I feel…" He stopped to look for the right word to describe how he was feeling. Cyborg nudged Starfire awake. She muttered something in tamaranian and slowly opened her eyes.

Her eyes shot open when she saw Robin, a standing and talking Robin. She flew to him and gave him one of her bone crushing hugs. "Friend Robin! You are well!" Raven could swear he saw Robins eyes grow even wider as Starfire was closing in on him.

The sound of laughter surprised the occupants of the room. Starfire dropped Robin and he started to rub his now aching sides. Du'grel was leaning on the wall and was trembling with laughter. It was a very low sound. It was the kind of laughter you had to smile with, even if you didn't get the joke. Even Raven felt her lips twinge a little. She suppressed the sudden urge to burst out laughing. 'It has to have something to do with the fact that he's a telepath. He affects people without even knowing it.' Raven thought.

He slid down the wall, still laughing. One good thing about his eyes was that you saw exactly where they were looking at. He was looking between Robin and Starfire and then again to Robin. He laughed louder. He fell to the floor and curled up holding his stomach and laughing his head off.

Raven looked around. All the titans were looking at the laughing boy in wonder (Du'grel, not Robin). They looked at each other, they shrugged in unison and left the room. Robin was almost himself now. And he looked like he was deep in thought. "So, what do you know about him?" Everyone looked at Raven. " His name is Du'grel. And my powers don't work on him, so there's a chance that he is some kind of demon. He admits that he's not from earth and says that he's been to Tamaran. All I can say that he hasn't actually attacked us directly, but that doesn't prove that he would not do so in the future. I couldn't trust him if I tried" Robin nodded and turned to the other titans for their opinion. "I'm willing to give him a chance" Cyborg simply stated. Robin nodded and turned to Starfire. Starfire opened her mouth to say something, but then stopped t think about what she was about to say. This was rare for the alien girl and put some more weight on her opinion. "I trust him" She said with a look of determination etched on her face. Raven raised an eyebrow "Why?"

Starfires confident demeanour cracked a little at Ravens tone. "What do you mean? I think he has proven himself to be a good man. He doesn't wish to hurt us and he has proven to regret the mistakes he has made", She gestured to Robin, "And he is willing to join us and fight crime, so he can't be that bad."

Silence… Robin nodded again, still in deep thought. "Beast Boy, what about you?", He looked up, "Where's Beast Boy?"

Someone cleared their throat behind Raven. All of them turned to look. They saw Du'grel standing there with a sleeping Beast Boy slung on one shoulder. "You forgot him in there. I would laugh at that, but right now I'm spent" He offered Beast Boy to Raven. Raven was stunned at the change in him. His eyes were still the same, but the hair was exactly like Robins, just white.

He offered Beast Boy to Cyborg when Raven was not taking him up on the offer. Cyborg was also looking at him with a gaping mouth. He furrowed his brow. "What are you looking at?" He dropped Beast Boy to the floor when no one seemed to care for him "You… Look like Robin." Starfire said.

His expression didn't change. "So?" Starfire spoke up "But… Robin looks like Robin, not you." He surprised everyone by changing into a perfect replica of Raven. He had even the exactly same looking cloak on. Even the eyes changed this time. Raven was ready to blow something up out of shock when he spoke with her voice. She would have if she was not… well, herself. "Better now?" He giggled with Ravens voice. It was a rare and a pleasant sound. He looked at the original. "I would like to sleep now. Can I sleep here, or do I have to go somewhere else?"

Robin clearly just gave up and said "Yeah, fine. You can stay here, but we'll be watching you." The other Raven looked at Robin. "I was not asking you, was I? Raven, can I stay here?" Raven was confused and disoriented from all the stuff during the day. She was not a bit confused from having to talk to herself. She did it with her emotions all the time. The thing that was confusing and disorienting was to see herself laugh. She did not realize that her face where so "girlish" when she laughed.

She nodded and Du'grel turned back to the white haired Robin. "Thank you m' lady. I'll be on the couch if anyone needs me, just remember not to touch me."

The titans looked at his retreating back. He disappeared behind the corner and they all seemed to snap out of a haze. "Cyborg, we're on lockdown for the night.", Robin said.

**A couple of hours later**

Raven settled down from her meditation on her bed. She didn't realize what had happened to her emotions. Almost all of them liked the white haired stranger. Happy was laughing her head off and shouting his name in the air… Unfortunately, so was Lust. She shivered at the sight of Lusts condition. And this happened in her mind. Her. Mind. He was dangerous if he was doing this to her. He was absolute evil, even if he seemed to be a titan fan of sorts and wanted to be a hero and a kindred spirit to her. 'Wait! Kindred spirit? I didn't think that! No, impossible! Which one of you was it?'

"But he is a kindred spirit to you" Said a voice from inside her. Raven closed her eyes and met the voice face to face. She saw herself in a light blue cloak. "Which one are you again?" She rubbed her temples to fight off the coming headache. "I'm Honesty. You'll have to face it and say that you wanted someone who can understand your situation" "He is nothing like me!" Then Logical appeared. "Of cource he is not like you. He had no monks of Azarath, no prophecy and no help in controlling his powers. He was marked into a freak at an early age and lived a life full of hate and neglet because of his abilities. Even if he is not a half-demon, he might be the only one that can understand you"

Raven sat up on the bed. 'How can my emotions be so stupid?' She curled up on the bed and fell asleep 'I'll think about it tomorrow…' She was asleep in a matter of seconds.

There were exactly five cameras watching the boy sleeping soundly on the couch in the common room. There were also 25 sentry turrets on standby inside the walls and ceiling. He had taken his coat off to sleep more comfortably. 4 of the cameras and 13 of the sentry turrets were frozen solid. The rooms every surface was covered in frost. There was only one warm spot in the sensors of the cameras. It was the sleeping figure of Du'grel.

The thing the sensors did not register though was a even more cold breath of air escaping the boys mouth and figure. It floated a few centimetres above the floor and moved through the T-shaped building. Directly through the walls and ceilings of the building. towards the bedrooms. It stopped in front of one door briefly, then it slipped through it and confidently continued through the room, careful not to touch anything directly with its form.

Raven clutched the sheets closer to herself as the mist materialized and wiped a stray strand of hair from her face. She felt a cold breeze on her face and shivered under the sheets. The mist turned into a outline of a man. It stayed by Ravens bed, watching over her sleeping form.

AN: I will not post Chapter three until I know what you think. Review, people, review. It means a lot to me.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The morning came as peaceful as ever to the T-tower. Birds were singing and all that. Robin was the first one up as usual. He woke with a start in the security room of the tower. He had fallen asleep watching the video-screens. He had stayed up to keep an eye on the new arrival. He noticed that there was a glass of mustard right next to his head. 'She thinks it will heal everything.' Robin thought with a sigh.

During the watching of his sleeping form, he had been thinking about him and his goal to be a Titan. He had been handing out those communicators like confetti. He did need to make possible enemies into allies. Or at least that's what Batman had taught him. He had a sneaking suspicion that he was just desperate to make friends. He did fit the qualifications of a Teen Titans: He was a teen for one, and second, he was a force to be reckoned with. He had beaten him with one punch. Almost killed him in fact.

There lied the problem: could he trust someone who could kill you if he happened to be in a bad mood? When he got to this point in his chain of thoughts, he reminded himself of Raven and the prophecy about her. And he reminded himself of Starfire and the situation the titans met her. She had been demolishing the city trying to get her restrains of her… and she had attacked him. Now Starfire was in the team and one of Robins best friends.

He didn't have anything against on recruiting him. He just did not want to do it. He stood up and started walking towards the roof to see the sunrise. He just loved… How did it get so cold in here?

He had just walked into the common room and felt the arctic chill in the room. 'It's him.' "Hey! Wake up!" He shouted to the prone body of the white haired boy. He thought he felt something brush past him, but he was so numb from the cold in the room that he ignored it.

"What is it, Colourful One?" Came the response behind the frozen couch. Robin tried to step closer, but his shoes had frozen themselves to the floor. "Did you do something to the AC, because it's like the Antarctica in here. Trust me. I've been there." Du'grel got up from the couch and rubbed his eyes. He looked around the room and seemed unfazed by the condition of the room. "Wait… I have to concentrate to do this..." Du'grel said while yawning widely. He stretched and streched his hands out. They started glowing in rosy red.

The frost slowly started to fade away him. Robin felt the air suddenly turn warmer and warmer around him. Soon after it was scorching hot. He started sweating and his throat dried up from the dryness of the air. Du'grel clenched his fists and the air was suddenly back to normal room tempeature. "Now, that's better. What was your business with me again?" He stood up and put on his coat. Robin noticed that some kind of runes flashed crimson inside it. 'So that controls his powers' He stretched again with conviction and eyed Robin with his unreadable eyes. Robin hatedthose eyes. He couldn't read them at all. He didn't even know if he was lying about his name.

"I… just came to watch the sunset." His cheeks flushed. 'That sounded so gay…'

"Can I come with? I've haven't seen a sunset on this planet yet. I'm curious about what all the fuzz is about." Robin was shocked. No remarks. No snide comments about his soft side. Even Raven would have said something. "Yeah. Sure."

He smiled "Cool. Race you there!" At that he shimmered away laughing. Robin shrugged and went into the kitchen to the kitchen to grab his coffee. When he got to the roof, sipping on his coffee, Du'grel was levitating in the air cross-legged with his coat whipping on one side. The position reminded him so much of Raven that he stopped at the door. "Oh, you made it. Now, tell me what's so good about a burning sphere too bright to look directly rising over the landscape to invade it with its light every single day? I mean, I just don't get it: You go blind if you look directly at it and if you stay under its rays too long you get burned. It seems to do more harm than good."

Robin was still processing his words when he said "That's an intresting point of view... I think that it's fascination is all in what it prepresents, not in what it is." The boy in black was silent for a while. "And what does it prepresent exactly?" Robin looked at Du'grel a little closer. He had heard something in his voice. He still couldn't read his eyes like a normal persons, but he did notice a flicker in their glow. It had to mean something. "It tells of a new beginning. A new day full of new possibilities. It says that today everything's possible."

Du'grel looked at the sun and the city glistening in its light for a short while. Then he settled down on his feet and turned to Robin. He leaned in and started speaking in a low voice. "I am Du'grel Desham. I have enough power to destroy this planet. That is a power I wish to control. I never asked for it. I never wanted it. I just got it.", His voice was only a mere whisper "I wish I could join the Titans to have help. Friends, a reason to control myself. I drain everything, warmth, emotion… life. Everything around me is reduced to nothing." He went silent and stared intently at Robins eyes. Not his mask, his eyes behind the mask. Somehow Robin knew that he was looking through it. Frost started forming on the ground beneath beneath him. He looked down in shock and jumped away from Robin. Air crystallized around him into a collection of shards that reflected light into prismns. They reflected light in every single colour of the spectrum. The suns first rays were magnified by the collection of prismns 'He's a show-off.' Robin thought. The light gathered around him and started twirling around him like a thick fog. Crystals formed and vaporized again when he moved. Ice formed on his footsteps. He released a feral growl and a tidal wave of white energy shot out of him. Robin felt a brush of energy on his skin. Du'grel sighed deeply and fell to his hands and knees, trembling. "That is why I need your help. I could have done something… final" He stood up shakily and straightened. "See you at breakfast." He shimmered away in his usual way.

**_Du'grels Point Of View_ **

He shimmered back to existence in the kitchen. He had been very close to destroying this world up in the room. It was all because of the sun. His body reacts to foreign sources of energy by trying to devour it. His powers were trying to reach the sun. The scary thing is; it had happened before, many times before. He was the destroyer of worlds. A devourer.

'Why did they send ME here? I'm the biggest threat to this world. This coat is the only thing keeping my powers at bay.' He stood in the middle of the kitchen for a minute. He was thinking of what to do next. 'I could win Starfires trust and friendship by cooking tamanarian. I think she would be my friend anyways. She's such innocent sweetheart.' He smiled a gentle smile to the thought of Starfires cheery mindset.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out several items needed to make a true tamaranian feast. He didn't want to go and ask Starfire for them. That would spoil the surprise. He was trying to think of a tamaranian food that would not make the rest of the team physically ill. He pulled a blue furry looking vegetable from his coat and placed it on the table. He nodded to himself and started to peal the vegetable.

It tried to run away.

_**Back To Robin...**_

Robin walked back into the kitchen to see it in total chaos. He saw something with his eyes that his brain would not register as real. He shut his eyes. He opened his eyes. It was still there. His brain had to accept the sight as real. Du'grel was chasing something blue, small and fast around the room, cursing in some alien language. He was chasing the blue thing with a kitchen knife in one hand and was shooting energy blasts at it from the another.

"Heads up!" Du'grel shouted. Robin caught the blue, furry… something, flying at his head in pure reflex. It tried to squirm free of his grip. "What's going on in here?!" Robin said with the blue thing trying to cut him with whip like roots. "What is this?" Du'grel snatched the blue thing from his hand and calmly stated "Tamarian cooking." He drove the knife through the blue thing. It let out a high pitched voice and went limp. "I am sure that this is a vegetable. I never really had to go and pick them from the field, but this explains why the ones that did go were so exhausted from picking a dozen of these things."

Robins brain finally registered the first thing he had said. "You're cooking for Starfire? You actually want to eat Tamaranian food?" The other thing he had said also registered in his head. "A vegetable?" Du'grel was cutting the supposed vegetable to tiny bits. The knife was only a blur. "Yeah, actually for all of you." He noticed the look of shear terror on Robins face. "Don't worry. This will taste better than anything she had made you. The royalty of her planet have quite eccentric tastes. I learned this recipe from the common folk on her planet."

Robin didn't relax, but his terror filled face was flooded with curiosity. "You've been there? How? When?" Du'grel dropped the chopped up bits of the vegetable in to a stone pot (which he pulled out of his coat) "You know that shimmering thing I do? It actually has no distance limit to speak of. I'll ust have to know where I want to go and..." Du'grel gestured to the T-tower. "I'm there." Robin noticed that he was comfortable with him. To his surprise, so was he. "You like to help out? Starfire would really appreciate it."

_**Ravens Point Of View**_

Raven woke up earlier than usual. She was a empath and she was sensible to strong emotions. She woke up because she sensed frustration and defeat from Robins mind and glee from someone else's mind. This combination usually meant a tough battle where Robin was losing and Slade winning.

She shot up at first, but then the events from last night rolled in front of her eyes and she stopped and viewed the emotions a little deeper. robin was not as worked up as he usually was when in battle, and Du'grel was -

**I thought I told you to stay out of my mind? Come in the kitchen. I got some herbal tea with your name on it.**

She was shaken to the bone. How did he get in to my mind without me knowing it? This guy was full of surprises. He's a telepath, a shape-shifter and god knows what! She grabbed her cloak and spun it on her and teleported into the kitchen.

She saw Robin fighting a pink, spiky looking fruit with a kitchen knife. Du'grel was slowly mixing something green with something blue in a stone bowl and humming a hypnotizing tune in a low voice. Du'grel looked up and saw Raven standing in the middle of the kitchen slack jawed. "Ah, Raven, my dear friend. Would you like to help us cook the breakfast feast or would you like your tea to go?" Her face was a pure facade of shock. "Raven, what's wrong?" Robin asked after stabbing the pink fruit with a knife several times, before throwing it to Du'grel who chopped it up in mid-air and caught the pieces into the same stone bowl. He looked at Raven and saw the expression of slack-jawed awe on her face. "Yeah, Raven. Your face is looking quite strange at the present moment. Are you having problems digesting your meal from yesterday, or are you just wondering why are we stabbing brightly coloured fruits and vegetables?"

Raven felt like laughing, her lips quirked a little. She recovered quickly and simply said "I am wondering why are you stabbing brightly coloured fruits and why are they trying to run away if they are vegetables?" Robin and Du'grel looked at each other and said in unison "They're tamaranian vegetables." Ravens face cleared into its normal expression of utter boredom. Du'grel rushed over to a side-table and picked up the steaming cup of herbal tea. He handed it to Raven. Raven hesitated. He could have poisoned it for all she knew. She looked over to Robin. 'He was here so he could not have slipped something in there without him knowing.'

Raven hesitantly picked up the cup and nodded a small thank you. She was about to leave when a thought hit her. "What does your name mean? I mean translated into english." Du'grel stopped for a minute. Clearly thinking hard "My name means… Translated in to your language… It means nothing." "So its just a random name?" Du'grel sighed. "No. I meant to say it means 'nothing'" He stabbed a purple onion looking vegetable that he pulled out of his coat. "Are we done with the questions, m'lady?" The full force of his eyes slammed into her. She felt surrounded.

"I'm sorry for being in-considerate. I did not have a right to ask…" She averted her eyes from his. She had felt such bitter hate flooding out of him. What has to happen to someone for such hate to grow inside you? She didn't even want to imagine it. "Thank you for the tea." She said and walked through the door.

"I think you scared her..." Robin saidin amazement. Du'grel snapped out of his grim mental state and looked utterly frustrated. "Sorry. I just don't have a very pleasant history." He put the stone bowl on the stove with his back turned to Robin. "Should I apoligize?" Robin was still amazed but he answered "Yes, I think you should."

Du'grel was silent for a minute. He tapped his jaw with his fingers while in thought. Then he reached into his jacket and searched its pockets. "What's her favourite colour?" Robin was surprised as he noticed that he had a small pouch in his hand. "Why do you ask?" He was a bit wary of the mystery pouch. "I need to know to choose the right kind of seed." He dropped the contents of the pouch on the table.

They were seeds and they were the kind of black that seemed to suck all light around it. "Oh, seemingly I don't have to know. I thought I lost these. I presume that you don't know what these are?" Robin shook his head. "Well, they're propably from where I'm from, because they are the only other living being that can stand direct contact with my power… That I know of." He picked up one of the seeds and looked at it mournfully. "Only if I knew more…"

He walked over to the sink and filled a glass with boiling water (He made it boil with a small flash of light). He dropped the seed into the water. The water froze instantly and a sprout grew out of the ice. "Sweet!" Beast Boy was standing in the doorway eyes as big as saucers "You do magic!" Du'grel nodded slowly. "Can you teach me?! Pleaaaseee!"

Robin was about to apoligize about Beast Boy when Du'grel surprised both of them. "Sure, its not that hard really." Robins jaw dropped somewhere around his knees. Beast Boy was jumping out of his skin. His skin was trying to strangle him He was just screaming unintelligible words and running around. Du'grel threw a random object at Beast Boy. It happened to be Silkie.

The worm hit the green skinned boy with a thud. "What the hell is that?!" Du'grel screamed ready to throw a kitchen knife at Silkie. Robin was as shocked as Beast Boy "You're going to teach Beast Boy magic!" Du'grel didn't even listen. He was still worked up about Silkie. "Really, what is that? If it came out of the vegetables I would have noticed!" Robin paid attention to hs words after the Beast Boy dilemna."Oh, that's just Silkie. You really think he can handle macig without breaking it? I mean, he even broke Cyborg once." Beast Boys ears drooped and a little rain cloud formed above his head. Du'grel chuckled. "You have strange pets. I don't think he can break magic… It can break him though." He shimmered around the edges for a split-second and then melted into thin air.

Du'grel was kicking himself mentally. It was a new feeling to him. He never had had something in his life to fail. He had to use his eyes to get people to back off when his past came up. Discussing it further always led to bad things. Death and destruction. He never had to deal with any kind of relationships before. Life was a lot simpler back then. That aproach wouldn't work here. He sighed deeply. But he was honour-bound into doing this. So better get it done with.

He always knew where high-tensidy energy sources were. He had an eight sense for them. He senced her on an edge of the roof in the side that faced the city. He thought that if he let out that much energy, she wanted to be found. He shimmered outside and levitated over to Raven. She had her back turned to him. She hadn't noticed him yet. That was a thing he had noticed about the girl. She couldn't sense him and it was fun scaring her half to death. He levitated upwards, above her. Then he turned himself upside down and slowly levitated his face only inches away from hers.

She was also levitating in mid-air. Legs crossed and a cup of tea in her hands. She was sipping from it every couple of minutes. He waited her to notice him. He was just watching her drink her tea in a peaceful manner. She had her eyes closed. She had a small smile nudging at her lips constantly. She was clearly trying to fight it back.

After she had finished her tea, ten minutes later, he was getting awkward just watching her without her knowing it. He decided to make his presence known to her. "Raven…" Her eyes shot open and he was sent hurling down by a rogue piece of the roof. He flipped and lost control of the energies keeping him in the air. To him levitating was a lot harder than flying at mach 7.

'What did I do now? I scared her, but she didn't have to hit me _**that**_ hard. Maybe its that I caught her smiling or something…' He was still a little disoriented because of the blow, so he didn't realize that he was about to fall hit solid rock. He passed the window of the ops-room wondering why was he flying downwards. Beast Boy jumped out of his skin again when he saw Du'grel falling past the window. He was running around again screaming unintelligible words. Silkie jumped up and knocked him out. Silkie thought that it was expected to do so.

Du'grel hit the ground with grushing force. 'She really packs a wallop' He groaned when he felt his body shatter from impact. He quickly distanced his soul-self from it to function better. He saw Raven touch down next to his body. She threw the piece of the roof that had knocked him into the sea before it hit his body. He tried to speak with his mouth, but he had to fall on his face, so that was impossible. Raven was reaching her hand to his body, probably to heal it.

**No, don't touch it!** Raven froze in place and a shiver ran down her spine. **Sorry. I know it feels like ice is dripping down your spine, but… just don't touch it.** She spun around to face his spirit. It was like a three-dimensional shadow of him. Only thing looking normal were his eyes, which were blazing brighter than ever before. His form was leaner and lizard-like in frame when he was in his spirit form. He really wanted to avoid interacting with people in this form. It always freaked them out.

"What are you? What is your business here, demon!" She stepped protectively in front of his body. He knew that his spirit form was growing into more and more less human with every passing second. He had to think fast. He did not want to be stuck like this. **I need Starfire. Your powers are not the right kind. I need energy.** He tried to keep the hiss out of his voice, but it was getting very hard

He saw realization spread across her face. She looked at the corpse on the ground. "Are you dead? Did I kill you? How come are you like that?" He groaned mentally. So many questions and he had to answer every one. **No, I'm not dead yet and that iz... _is_ only because my spirit iz not tied to my body. Now, go and get Starfire before I turn into a lizard-demon or something.**

She already got up in the air and intented on flying to Starfires window and ask her to come down to him, hoping that no-one saw Du'grel fall. She did not get the chance to do this secretly. Beast Boy had seen the happenings and had presumed that the "lizard thingie" was responsible and alerted the others. They ran through the T-shaped door and gathered around Raven. Du'grels spiritual form was deformed into a lizard-like thing that grew in size by every passing second.

His eyes were looking into Ravens, pleading. **Could you explain to them that I need Starfire to shoot at my body with all her might.** Raven turned to Starfire as the spirit faded out of existence and Du'grels body started twitching and groaning. "Starfire, I need you to shoot Du'grels body with your starbolts." Starfire was shocked and her hands and eyes stopped glowing. "I do not wish to hurt him any further…" Du'grel amazed everyone by speaking in a gurgling voice. "Just do it Star… This is a very uncomfortable position for me"

AN: Starfire might have done it out of pure shock of hearing a body talk, but lets just keep the image of the nice naïve girl in our heads and shun away that thought as swiftly as possible. She did it only because Du'grel asked her nicely to do it, shall we.

Random suspicious voice: But why did she shout: "Die, filthy half-life! Die!" In tamaranian?

AN: ... On with the show!

Starfire fired a furry of starbolts at Du'grels prone body. Dust rose up to engulf the area where his body had been and a faint purplish glow started resonating from the center of the dust cloud. They saw a figure rising inside the cloud. It was somehow wrong looking as its hands were limp on his sides and flailing around as it steadied itself. "More, please…" Came the gurgling voice again.

The dust started to settle and the details of the figure started showing. They had expected something much more gruesome from the disgusting gurgling voice. Sure, his hair were stained red by blood and his overcoats hood was severed off and ripped, but the gruesome wounds that the blood must have spilled from were gone and under the blood was a completely healed skin and bone. "Theres only some brain damage and some ruptured stuff in my throat left…" Starfire launched a single starbolt at Du'grel and saw the effects without the dust covering them. As the energy hit the boy in the chest there was a spreading purple glow playing across his form. It spread across his skin and shone through the overcoat and then disappeared into his eyes. His posture straightened and he dusted himself off and walked over to them, smiling broadly.

"Now then… Raven, I apoligize for being aggressive towards you and hope that you would accept this token of my… regret? Is that right? I don't know what I'm supposed to say… So…" He offered a pitch black sprout of a flower to her. Raven was totally shaken to the core of her being. What was wrong with this guy? He nearly died and his only concern was her forgiving him? "Thank… you?" Raven took the flower from his hand and saw it transform into a dark blue rose. She was about to drop it from surprise, when Du'grel closed his hands on the hand she was holding the rose. "It is my gift to you. It is yours and no one else's. Its only purpose to exist, and its only way to exist, is to please you." He grinned in his usually wide way "The perfect gift isn't it?"

Raven was speechless. It was so beautiful and delicate. In other words it was just as she had imagined a beautiful flower to be _in her mind. _Had he somehow found a way inside her head again? To be honest, she didn't care if he did. She trusted him. This was unlike her, but he had proven himself to wanting to be a titan. He had everything to be a titan in the first place: He had powers, he protected justice (He just had to know what it was first) He had a good sense of humour… That has nothing to do with being a titan! Stop thinking like that! Who said that?

Honesty: You did. Don't come bitchin' to us every time you get weird wibes.

Raven closed her mouth when she was about to speak to herself out loud and answered in her mind. Du'grel noticed that Raven wasn't paying him any attention and quietly walked to the waters edge. The wawes that crushed in to the rocks near him froze while still in the air.

Du'grel was looking out in the horizon and seemed to be in a completely different place. His features were looking a little disjointed if someone looked close enough. He had a small scowl on his lips. Robin walked over to him and tapped him on the shoulder. "You sure you are okay?" He rearranged his face into a more normal position. Robin heard a series of soft cracks. "No, I wont be okay for a while… but they don't have to know that." His neck creaked when he turned his face to Robin. "Your people almost killed me. So, am I a titan now?" He had an expressionless mask on his features, well maybe not expressionless, but not moving at least. Robin absolutely had no reason not to make him a titan. He sighed deeply and reached into his uniform. He handed the communicator to Du'grel. "You're officially a titan now." Du'grel took the communicator and looked at it a long time. "What's this?"

Robin fell off his feet from shock. There was a comical moment when you could see his feet pointing up to the sky. "You want to be a Titan and you don't even know about communicators!" He was only inches away from Du'grels face. "How should I know about them?! I've been here only for a couple of days and I'm supposed to know every single detail of the titans!" His voice was a roaring hiss and his bared teeth looked like a line of serpents fangs. He looked ready to kill. Robin backed off a couple of paces and Du'grel was clearly fighting the urge to jump and rip his throat out. He closed his eyelids. This did not help anyone but him, as his eyes shone through them just as brightly. All of the Titans saw how his eyes rolled over in his head. He concentrated on calming himself. He concentrated on the rhythm of the sea and his own heartbeat. Anything else was just background noise to him. A flash of lightning erupted from him and it to the skies. Dark clouds formulated above them, spiralling outwards, spreading above the landscape. His eyes still glowed bright, but he got up and looked a lot better. He smiled a kilowatt smile at them and seemed to completely dismiss the fit of rage.

"So… Who's up for some tamaranian cooking?" His teeth were completely normal now. Starfire also dismissed the fit of rage when hearing about tamaranian food. "Do you have in your possession the culinary delight of my home planet?" Du'grel seemed confused by her choice of words, but eventually said "Yes… I do. In the kitchen… Race you there!"

He blasted off to the skies and made an effortless loop in the air. Then he flew low skinning the water and passed Starfire by mere inches. "Come on! A little flying before breakfeast does wonders for your appetite!" Starfire giggled and launched off after Du'grel. She passed Du'grel easily and shouted something in tamaranian. Du'grel grinned and shouted something back and sped off, chasing her.

The other titans thought they heard a set of sonic booms a couple of minutes later.

"I really don't like that guy..." Robin said quietly to himself. The clouds rumbled and rain poured down. Robin scowled and ran into the tower with the other Titans.

Starfire felt happier than ever. She never could fly this freely and fast on this planet. She felt the " barriers of sound" breaking around her. She swirled around and saw Du'grel following her and smiling at her with a distracted looking smile on his face. "What do you say if we'd spin around France and get a couple of croissants? Or would you like to go somewhere else?" Starfire spun around in the air. "Please, tell me, what is this 'France' you speak of?"

He just grinned wider and sped up in front of Starfire "Just follow me." He looked back over his shoulder "If you can keep up?" He enveloped himself in a white aura and sped off into the distance laughing loudly. He became a distant blip in the horizon. A laughing distant blip in the horizon. A distant blip that assaulted her honour. Starfire concentrated on feeling the joy of flight with furious effort. It was not that hard as the joyfulness of Du'grel was contagious in nature.

She sped of after Du'grel and finally caught up with him around the coastline of Europe. "Took you long enough! Its only a couple of minutes to France now." Starfire felt anger rising up in her. "I WAS ONLY LEFT BEHIND BECAUSE YOU DID NOT WAIT FOR ME!" Du'grel was knocked back when she hit him hard on the arm. His body took this as a welcome burst of kinetic energy, but his senses took it in as plain pain. "Auh! Why did you do that for? We're racing! I'm not supposed to wait for you!" Starfire didn't answer, but she did speed off into the distance. Du'grel growled and decided to mess with her, he shimmered ten miles in front of her and immediately started singing a slow, slow tune with an sad tone.

It is a known fact that time passes slower when you're sad or just not enjoying yourself. People dismiss this as a relevancy matter. The truth is that time really does drag on longer when you are doing something unpleasant. If you could just project that _feeling_ outside of your own soul, you might be able to slow down time for everyone else. You might even be able to stop it if you are good enough. Singing is basically freeing your emotions and going with the flow of the sound. You were using magic when you were able to dump your emotion in to the flow and step back.

He kept singing and time suddenly seemed to freeze in its tracks. You could say it came to a screeching halt, but the screeching was only displayed as a flickering darkness. According to Du'grels experience this was the heartbeat of the universe, nothing to be messed with. If it stops, nothing exists. He was always wary of coming here, but sometimes you just couldn't help yourself. You could pull some funny pranks when you could stop time.

He kept singing and levitated over to a slow moving comet, which was a frozen in time Starfire. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a fiery red rose and a brush. He placed the rose carefully in her hair and drew cat whiskers on her cheeks just for the fun of it. He backed away and stashed the brush back into his coat. He levitated ten feet in front of Starfire and made a bag full of fresh French pasteries pop out of thin air.

He stopped singing and held the bag in front of him. Time rushed back to speed and Starfire kept on coming at him at mach 7. He stayed in place and held out the bag of goodies in front of him. Starfire made her "eep!" sound and screeched in the air to stop her self. She did not quite make it and Du'grel had to catch her not to get knocked out. They tumbled in the air and landed in a nearby tree. "AUH! That hurt… Why do girls keep hurting me?" He was lying on a thick branch in a back breaking position. He was like an U turned backwards.

He raised himself in to a sitting position with a loud crack in the base of his spine. "Ooh… That hit the spot." He levitated up in the air and offered a hand to Starfire, who was tangled in a bunch of branches at the base of the tree. "Zorg o'ra knopf gridgen dugrth!" He pulled her out of the tree and smirked. "Now, now. Watch your language. I'm sure you didn't really mean that." Starfire was surprised. "You can understand me? You speak Tamaranian?" He nodded "I did say that I've been there. Let's get back to the tower." At that he grabbed Starfire by the waist and shimmered back to the tower.

Du'grels teleportation was very different from Ravens translocation spells. For one it did not chill you to the bone and send you to a dark place for the split-second that you were between those two places. Du'grells shimmering had no in between in it and that caused a sense of sewere disorientation after you appeared at the desired location. Starfire stumbled a couple of paces and then blinked fiercely. She looked around her and tried to regognize something from her surroundings. "Where are we?"

Du'grel quirked an eyebrow. "We're at the tower. Are you okay?" Du'grel settled her down on a rock before she fell down. Starfires eyes started to regognize things. She regognized the huge T right in front of her as the T-tower and then she saw the field were they participated in the practice of combat. She looked at Du'grel. She only saw concern in his face. "I just got a little disoriented. Your teleportation seemingly does that." Starfire said while getting up.

Du'grel started levitating upwards to the tower and turned around while halfway up. "Come on already, slowpoke!" They entered the kitchen through the hole that Du'grel cut in the window. When they were both inside he put the glass back in place with a snap of his fingers. He stepped in front of the stone bowl and carefully raised the lid. A multi-coloured smoke cloud erupted from it. Everyone expected it to smell horrible or make you grow an extra pair of hands. They were surprised when the multi-coloured smoke smelled like ten different kinds of foods. It smelled fruity, meaty, soothing, sweet, bitter, citrus, spicy, mild, etc.

Du'grel and Robin carried the stone bowl to the table and everyone ate. Raven wiped the cat whiskers off of Starfires face and gave Du'grel a murdering glare that she usually preserved for Beast Boy. She also left the rose in her hair. They all ate with unusual enthusiamn

"So… what now? We all have 'stuffed our faces'. Should we do something now or would a 'nap' be the right thing to do? Beast Boy has already gone to the land of dreams…" Du'grel looked around the kitchen counter and saw a row of half asleep people drooping in their seats. Beast Boy had already fallen off his stool, asleep. He walked over and nudged him with his boot. "Why is he always asleep when I'm around?" He snapped his fingers and Beast Boys body disappeared into a pool of shimmering air. "Figured he should sleep in his bed for once… I gather you lot should be there too."

"But it's only ten thirty in the morning!" Raven shouted while fighting off a yawn.

You're tired, right? Then you should sleep."

Cyborg groaned and gestured vaguely with his arm. He was full for once in his life and he hadn't even eaten a piece of meat, only that mystery soup Du'grel made. The thing that surprised all of them was that Raven also ate the food with similar enthusiasm and even laughed a couple of times. She only laughed at Du'grels stories though. Beast Boy got the same treatment as always: A sarcastic remark. Du'grel chuckled at her remarks and made Raven blush slightly every time. He gave his stories their own twist by telling everything as the characters in them and occasionally, for some reason, Robin. Everyone was close to spitting out their mouthfuls when Raven started laughing as Du'grel was jumping around as Robin, dressed in a pink leotard and singing "It's raining men" with Robins voice. Everyone just played along, because if someone (Beast Boy, knocked out) mentioned it, Raven would shrink back into her old shell.

It was weird because Du'grel seemed to befriend Raven faster anyone one of the others. He knew how to make people laugh and he shared an interest in the arcane arts with Raven, so they hit it off instantly. But now Du'grel was the only one coherent now. The food seemed to have some sedating qualities and everyone of the titans were swaying on they're seats. "Now, now. Someone is so very full… Isn't that right, Raven? I was surprised by your appetite. How can you be so skinny and still stuff you're face like that? Do azarathians have a super metabolism or something. Oh, I know! It's all that meditation! 'Better than any diet or exercise.' I think I heard about something like that when I was on Az-" He clenched his jaw shut. "I use meditation to keep my powers in control, not to lose weight!" Raven shouted in return. "Ha! The weight control is just a pleasant side-effect then?"

"It does not work that way!"

"It doesn't? I thought that meditation was the control of your mind and body? In other words: It keeps the pounds in check."

"Umm…"

"I rest my case! Now, I'm going to go take a nap!" He disappeared with a snap of his fingers. Raven wasn't the arguing type, but now she felt a sudden urge to shout something after him. 'that little…' Tentacles of black energy threw the kitchen counter out the window. Raven snapped out of her tantrum and hoisted the flying kitchen counter back through the window to its original place. "Sorry… I got to go and meditate" She muttered to her half asleep team mates. They were all stumbling away to their rooms to sleep. Raven followed suite and teleported to her room to meditate and then rest. She grabbed the enchanted beauty mirror and floated above her bed in a meditative position. She looked into the mirror…

**Inside Ravens mind**

"Hi, Raven!" Happy screeched when Raven appeared from the gate. The Raven in pink was jumping from one foot to another from excitement. "It's about time you gave me a chance! I was starting to feel like my good friend Timid over here." She pointed her finger behind her and Raven noticed the grey-cloaked girl covering behind Happy. It always broke Ravens heart to see the girl. "Hello…" Timid said and tried to make herself as small as possible. The real Raven nodded a 'hello' to the frightened girl. Happy wasn't done talking yet. "Yeah, you don't have to worry about that grumpy little bitch, Anger. I kicked her ass just now. She has a mean left hook but I just kicked her in the head a couple of times and boy did that shut her up. Brave even said I have potential to becoming a hero! She was astonished, her own words. She just said 'I'm astonished' and then tied Anger to a floating piece of rock…" She stopped to catch her breath and Raven took the opportunity to get a word in to the conversation. "Wait, you're saying that **you** beat Anger? Timid, Is she telling the truth?"

Timid made a Starfire like "eep" and hid behind Happy. "Yes, she is telling the truth. She saved my life. I think you should apologize about almost killing Du'grel and calling Cyborg and Beast Boy names and telling Starfire to shut up the other week when she only wanted you to join her in the painting of toe nails and watching of girly movies about teenagers in 'love of the puppies' and you should also -"

"Timid, you're my friend and I love you, but for the love of Azarath shut up already." Happy looked serious when she said this and patted Timid gently on the cheek. To the real Raven this was a new development: her emotions never have been friendly with each other. Quite the opposite in fact, they always had been arguing and having fights inside her head. She had an almost constant headache because of them. "Since when have you been friends? I remember that you were always picking on Timid and scaring her half to death every time I came here."

"That's not true! It's not my fault if Timid has no sense of humor to speak of. And I'm not even starting about yours…" She crossed her arms and made an "Hmph!" sound. Intelligence walked into the scene. She poked her glasses up her nose and cleared her throat. "Sorry to bother you but I think I should explain Happys rantings." A rock hit her square in the face and sent her to the ground. "Timid!" Happy shouted and tackled her when she was picking up another rock to throw at Intelligence. "I told you to drop it! I don't care about what she says about me!" Raven was helping Intelligence up while her pink and gray counterparts were rolling on the ground, fighting. "Intelligence, are you okay? What was that about? What did you say about Happy and why does Timid care?"

"They have been getting closer over the last couple of days, I would reckon it's because of Du'grel somehow… Anyhow, Timid and Happy are** very **close friends now and Timid is kind of protective of her… I think you should do something about that." She pointed at the still tumbling Happy and Timid. "They will stop eventually, why should I interfere?" Intelligence looked decisively away from the pair tumbling on the ground and her cheeks turned beet red when she said: "I think you didn't look close enough…"

Raven looked at the pair rolling on the ground. They were fighting, what's so embarrassing about that? They didn't seem to hit each other that much though… They were scratching each others sides and backs in slow motions. And was happy trying to bite Timid. No… actually she was -

"Fucking hell! Stop that you two!" Timid and Happy flew apart by an wave of black energy. Happy stopped herself in mid-flight. "Hey! I was just starting to enjoy myself! Timid is a great kisser." She grinned at Timid, who blushed furiously. "How the hell did this happen? How can two sides of me start banging each other? That's just freaking impossible and sick, very sick! How could you?!" Logic walked in to the scene and knocked Intelligence off her feet while passing her. "It's obvious, isn't it? Du'grel is drawing us out and making us more whole and we can make our own decisions now... Even how screwed up they are..." "What do you mean 'drawing us out'?" Raven askaed. Logic sighed and continued, "He drains things around him. He drains every emotion you don't express and forwards it back out of him, at least I think so. He made you laugh, so Happy is out of the closet. He made you ashamed, so Timid is out also. They decided to hook up for some reason. Remember, time moves differently in here; years have passed in these couple of days in here. In the forefronts of your mind."

"They're fuck-buddies now!" Yelled the orange-cloaked Rude behind Logic. She was groping Intelligence to press her point. Or maybe she just wanted to grope Intelligence, who knows anymore…

"Well, isn't this a lovely little gathering." Sarcastic walked in, steering far from Rude and Intelligence. "I could hear the sucking noise from a mile away." She had shadows under her eyes as a sign of exhaustion. She looked ready to fall to the ground from it. "God, what happened to you?" Raven hated being unknowledgeable in her own mind, but now she had no idea what was going on in here. Her emotions seemed all to be horny lesbians. Well, they didn't have very much choice in here, did they? They were all copies of her and there certainly was a shortage of men in here. This didn't actually mean she was a lesbian, did it? She never really thought about her sexuality, since she didn't think that anyone could find her sexy. And she could not get romantically envolved anyway.

"Raven, the real Raven, are you alright? You kinda… faded off." Raven snapped out of her thoughts. "I'm just fine. Please don't tell me you're a dyke too." Sarcastic looked appauled, but still hesitated to answer. "See… the thing is…"

"No!"

"Let me finish!"

"I don't want to hear this!"

"Lust have been pouncing on me from time to time and I don't want her to, but I still like the things she does to me very, very much and I'm very confused and don't know if I should kill her or love her, or do the things she does to me to her or what!" Her face was blue from the tirade of words, she passed out and fell to the ground. Lust immediately appeared from a pool of blackness wearing a red bikini and grabbed Sarcastic and disappeared again with her pressed against her body.

Raven was silent. The emotions gathered around her and asked if she was okay. How could she be okay when she found out that there were a dozen little hers fucking each other inside her head? She didn't bother to answer them and turned back to the portal leading out of her mind. She heard the ones not occupied by molesting one another shout a "goodbye" after her. She stepped through the gate…

And opened her eyes, still in the meditation pose above her bed. "I wished it would have been a dream…" So, she now had to figure out if she liked boys or girls… Later. Now she had to sleep. Her cloak fell to the floor and she snuggled in to the covers enjoying the warmth. Was it colder in her room? Maybe the AC broke or something? Her mind started fading into dreams. She thought she saw a figure guarding over him when she fell asleep. Strange enough (because she wasn't the one to believe in those kind of things) she immediately thought it was her guardian angel. She fell asleep feeling safer than in years.

AN: I still would like you to review about the story and how am I writing it, but I would also like if you would tell me what you think about Du'grel. Is he annoying, mysterious, loveable, weird, geeky, strong minded, etc. I'll be waiting.


	4. Chapter 4: The dragon

AN: I usually don't name chapters because I have a hard time coming up with the names, but I just had to name this one and I don't care what you think of it.

Chapter 4: The dragon

Raven woke up when the alarm horn started honking. She shot up and grabbed her cloak from the floor where she had left it. She spun it around her and phased through the wall. She slammed into Du'grel who was calmly walking past her room. She couldn't help but notice the hard muscles flexing under his overcoat. "Raven! You scared me! What does this freaking horn mean?!" He yelled over the alarm with a pained expression on his face. 'So he has sensitive ears' Raven knew that Beast Boy hated that sound also as much, because of his dog-like hearing it was like an ice pick through his head. "Just follow me!" Raven ran past Du'grel and as she got to a feet from him, his chill came in effect again and the air grew cold. She saw how her breathing came out as a cloud.

They entered the ops-rooms with Du'grel looking puzzled. "So we have to have a very noisy horn for us to know when to go and beat people senseless? Why does that just seem wrong?" Raven put her hood on hurriedly when a smile quirked her lips upwards. He had a good sense of humour. She couldn't deny that. The big screen came to life. "Holy shit, I thought that was a window!" Raven seemed to have a sudden cough attack and she turned her back to the others. "It's the Hive five. They're at a bank uptown." Robin muttered when he was hitting a couple of keys on the computer.

"I don't think we need that big of a screen. Come on, if you can't levitate you'll have to tilt your head way up."

"Just forget about the screen, Du'grel! Titans, Go!" Robin yelled and the Titans were off. Du'grel followed them, still muttering about the ridicolous screen.

When they got to the bank the Hive five were already inside the vault and eying the precious items. "So, what do we do now?" Du'grel climbed out of the T-car and looked at the five criminals. His eyes stopped at Gizmo. "They have a midget in their team. How cute." Du'grel didn't make the comment to amuse or offend anyone; he said it in a matter-of-fact tone. He discreetly winked at Jinx and then pulled on his hood. His eyes jumped out when his face was completely covered in the ebony shadows of his enchanted hood. He snapped a pair of silky-black gloves on and then walked over to the rest of the team.

"How's the new guy?" Mammoth rumbled with a question mark appearing above his head. "Don't know, don't care. Just be careful, he seems dangerous." Jinx said to her team. She tried to ignore the little voice in the back of her head saying: "Just the way you like them…" It had appeared after Du'grels little play time with her. It always made suggestion, it suggested her to do all kinds of things, like touch Mammoth muscles or see what would a gang bang with Billy Numerous be like. She had been drinking a glass of milk when she had heard that. She had sputtered the milk all over Gizmo. She ran for her room when the foreign voice started a sentence about him. She only came out for this bank robbery that the rest of the team had planned just to cheer her up. She needed the adrenaline rush to clear her head, so she came along. Then Du'grel appeared and destroyed her hopes for getting her head cleared.

"Titans, Go!" came the trademark shout from Robin. "Yeah, yeah.Fly in to a window bird-boy." muttered Du'grel and flew over to Gizmo. "Hi", He cheerily said, "How come you are so small? Are you a midget? I've never met a midget before. I always wanted to -" "I'm not a midget you snot munching turd-ball!" Du'grel chuckled "I know, I know. I just had to distract you when I disconnected that backpack of yours." He walked away when Gizmo fell to the ground, calling him names.

Jinx was currently fighting Robin. He seemed a lot slower than usual to her. His movements were on slow motion and she easily avoided his kicks and punches. 'Is this part of the thing he did to me? He did say he released something inside me.' Jinx was in deep thought and she dodged and countered Robins punches easily, Robin clearly didn't like this. He began taking risks with daring kicks and slow uppercuts and this gave Jinx a chance to hit him in return. Finally she jumped to get out from the path of three flying bird-a-rangs and then landed gracefully on his head. She raised her hands above her head as if to take in the applauses.

Du'grel clapped just to be polite.

Du'grel walked up to Cyborg and Mammoth trying to bring one another down. He tapped Cyborg on the shoulder and then said "May I?" "A little busy here!" Cyborg said gritting his teeth. Then Mammoth tackled Cyborg through the wall. "Who are you supposed to be?" Du'grel just stood there staring at Mammoth. "You deaf or something?" Du'grels eyes shone brighter and he said in a low rumbling voice identical to Mammoths: "'Who are you supposed to be? You deaf or something?'"

"Stop that!"

"'Stop that!'"

Mammoth let out a feral growl and charged athim and flung his fist at Du'grels face. A white burst of energy sent him through the banks outer wall and he landed on a car. He saw Du'grel levitating through the hole his body had made just a moment ago. He had his arms hanging down in a ghoulish manner. He looked more like a demon than a hero. "I can't believe you fell for that!" He started laughing in a strange way; it was like a mixture of growling and hissing. It completed the demonic look. He looked like a piece of pure darkness with two golden hawk-eyes glaring at you with murder in them. He was impressed. The hero in black was only third of his size and he was scared of him. "Why won't we end this short and save us both the trouble of me kicking your butt?" His eyes glinted with amusement when Mammoth charged at him again. When he was ten feet away from him Du'grel decided to have some fun. He concentrated on Mammoths mind and his power… and then he drained it.

Mammoth hit him in the chest and Du'grel took the force in without mowing a inch. He was still processing the energy he had stolen through his system. He had to do it fast because Mammoths next blow would be in full force. 'chemical, kinetic, electric, ionic imbalance, genetic attributes… There!' He moved all the power of Mammoths attack to his own right hand and then lightly tapped him on the forehead, sending the force back to him, through his forehead and into Mammoths brain. Mammoth fell to the ground unconscious.

"Way too easy… Hey, Raven!" He levitated back into the bank and saw Raven fighting Jinx. 'catfight! WOOHOO!' A part of him shouted from deep inside him. This puzzled him. He didn't actually know what a catfight was. "What should I do now, m'lady?" Raven was hit with a powerful hex and was slammed to the ground next to Du'grel. Raven stood up and glared at Du'grel. "Stop calling me that! You could start by helping out here." Du'grel snickered when he saw Beast Boy shot back when he had tried to sneak up on Jinx as a mouse. Jinx found out just then how much she hated the furry little things. She kept on shooting waves of bad luck at Beast Boy long after he had transformed back into his own self. "I'd rather watch, m'lady." "What, are you afraid of Jinx? Or do you have some policy on hitting girls?" Behind the shadows covering his face he had a sleazy grin on his face. He laughed in a deep husky voice that sent shivers up and down Ravens spine. "No, not exactly. I just like watching two hot girls fighting. There's something very sensual about the whole thing."

Ravens fist connected with his face, sending him down on the ground. "Pervert!" Du'grel was caught off guard and his power draining didn't have time to work, so now he had a bruise forming under his right eye. "What did you do that for, m'lady?" His hood had fallen off and she felt a twinge of guilt she saw his expression of wide-eyed disbelief. He was in some ways as naïve as Starfire. He didn't see anything wrong in speaking the truth in any circumstance. "And what the hell is this 'pervert'?" Jinx hit them both with one of her hexes Raven was knocked back and hit a wall. She slid down the wall, unconscious.

"Jinx! Stop!" Du'grels voice boomed over the whole city and it had an instant effect on anyone who heard it. They found themselves stopping whatever they were doing and not being able of conscious thought for a couple of minutes. Jinx winced when she found that her body was completely paralysed. Du'grel flew over to Raven and gently lifted her on her feet. "You okay?" Raven nodded. "You sure? You might have a concussion or a fracture or something -" A vein popped up on Ravens forehead. "I'm fine! I'm a healer; if I had something that wouldn't heal on its own I would be in a healing trance by now!" Du'grel looked hurt. "Sorry, but I couldn't have had known that, m'lady."

He turned around and faced Jinx. His face was an emotionless mask. "Lets talk somewhere else." He said a single word in an alien language and he and Jinx disappeared. Raven was left wondering why did he get so serious when _she _got hurt and didn't really mind about the others (Cyborg was climbing out of a pile of rubble, Beast Boy was pinned under a mountain of rubble and Robin was still unconscious) did he have feelings for her?

**Ravens Internal struggle:**

Timid: 'No, he's not interested in you, he just has some sovinistic thoughts about the endurance of women'

Happy: Oh, just shut up and kiss me, funny face!

Timid: Mmm…

Happy: Mmm! Is that a vibrator in your panties?!

Timid: Umm… Yes.

Happy: You're one perverted chick… mmm…

Suspicious: Stop that, you two! Hey, Raven! Have you ever wondered why he calls you m'lady?

Raven: I think it's just a big joke to him.

Suspicious: Yeah, but have you noticed that he hasn't lied to you once or left a question you made unanswered?

Logic: Yeah, that is weird when you think about it…

Timid: Happy! Get your hand out of there!

Happy: Come on! I know you love it.

Lust: No, no, no! You're doing it all wrong!

Happy: What do you mean? What am I doing wrong?

Curious: Yes, tell us!

Intelligence: For god sakes…

Lust: You'll have to put you're finger HERE…

Timid: Ah!

Lust: Not here…

Timid: Auh! Stop doing that!

Happy: Oh! That does make sense…

Logic: It does?

Childish: I learned something new today! A day well spent! Lets play hide and seek!

Honesty: You two are perverted.

Happy: I know! So I was supposed to put this in here…

Timid: Ah!

Motherly: Eat your cookies.

Raven: I can't believe you are a part of me…

Logic: As I was saying: Du'grel seems to be incapable to lie or disobey you.

Suspicious: You do mean as _I _was saying don't you?

Logic: Whatever. Anyway he's been incapable of lying to you.

Intelligence: Only seems to be. He might just be an honest person.

Sarcastic: Please help me! She won't stop! I can't take it anymore…

Lust: Get back here!

Sarcastic: Hide me!

Rude: You'll just have to take one for the team.

Curious: Does she use whips and chains?

Sarcastic: We're way past whips and chains by now…

Masochistic: Whips and chains?

Sarcastic: Yeah, want to swap cloaks?

Masochistic: Anything for whips and chains!

Lust: There you are! Get back on your leash!

Masochistic: I've been a bad girl…

Lust: You certainly have.

Masochistic: Will I be punished, mistress?

Lust: Oh, most thoroughly! (They walk out in to a shady cave)

Timid: Oh… my… god! Keep going!

Suspicious: What is Happy doing to Timid? Is her hand in Timids -

Honest: You really don't want to know.

Suspicious: But where did her right hand disappear…

Honest: You don't wanna know. Trust me.

Curious: I'm going to take a closer look!

Honest: Really, you shouldn't…

Curious: It can't be that bad… Holy shit!

Suspicious: Well?

Curious: You don't want to know.

Raven: That's it! I'm leaving!

Happy: Bye Rae-Rae!

Timid: Uhn… Bye...

Childish: Don't leave me!

Motherly: Anyone? Fresh out of the oven.

Suicidal: We have an oven? Where?

Motherly: Right over there...

Suicidal: (Tries to commit suicide by putting her head in the oven.)

Motherly: It's not a gas oven...

Intelligence: Be seeing you.

Logic: Bye!

Suspicious: Wait! Have you thought about the fact that you have feelings for him!

Rude: Oh shut up, you miserable bitch!

Suspicious: I dare you to say that again!

Rude: Biaatch!

Suspicious: AAARGH!

Rude: Hey! No biting!

**Back into the real world... **

"Raven! Raven, are you okay?" Robins masked face came into focus. "Wha…" Raven felt dizzy. 'I'm taller than Robin. Why is he looking down on me?' She moved her head a little to the side and saw Beast Boy and Starfire looking down on her. 'I can see up Stars skirt. No panties…'

Lust: Yummy! Thanks for the info!

'Of course! I'm lying down. God, I can be stupid sometimes.' "Huh! Yeah, I'm just fine. Just a little disoriented." 'Now to remember how to move my legs…' Robin offered a hand to help her up. 'I'm sure it will come to me…' She took it and was hoisted up on her shaking feet. She felt like she was about to fall down again and she supported herself on Robin. "What happened? I remember that Du'grel disappeared with Jinx…" Robin shrugged "Well you haven't missed anything really… After he left you started talking to yourself and then collapsed. Mammoth woke up and Cyborg is beating him right now. And… Believe it or not... Beast Boy finally shut himself up."

"What! That's impossible!" Raven exclaimed. She looked at Starfire for confirmation. She nodded and hit Beast Boy in the head. He collapsed to the ground. And he got up. He didn't say a word. He had an apathic look on his face. "Are you sure that is Beast Boy?" Raven asked

Logic: Of course it's Beast Boy! No one is that stupid that they would make a Beast Boy copy and not make it a chattering idiot. He's probably drugged or something.

"Yeah, you're probably right, Raven. Gizmo probably drugged you and Beast Boy while he was here. We can't find him." Raven started levitating since her legs were still not carrying her. Mammoth flew through the wall and landed right in front of them. Raven threw him back outside. She realized something."Did I say that out loud?"

Logic: Duh! Idiot...

"Did you say what out loud?" Starfire asked. "Never mind. Should we go help Cyborg?" Robin puffed and crossed his arms "Nah. He's taking his frustration out on Mammoth. He'll be fine." They heard the boom of Cyborgs sonic cannon and a sound of broken glass followed.

Sarcastic: What about the rest of us?

"I honestly didn't even think about that…" Robin jumped out in to the street and saw how Cyborg beat Mammoth with a street lamp. The lamp was bloodied and Mammoth was barely moving. "Cyborg, stop!" Robin tried to pry the lamp out of Cyborgs hands but he just swatted him away. Raven twisted the street lamp around Cyborg with her powers to keep him under control. He snapped out of what ever made him go into a frenzy. "What… What happened? I blacked out…" He fell down on his knees and vomited. Starfire twisted the street lamp off of him. "What happened to us?" Raven spoke the question that only started to plague the others minds out loud.

**In an distant world **

"Exactly what happened to you?" Du'grel asked with only a hint of anger present in his voice.

"Where are we…" Jinxes mouth was hanging open. It was absolutely beautiful. It was as if they were standing on a cloud. Thick fog covered the ground and a setting sun coloured the skies into a beautiful shade of red. Only thing breaking the illusion was the fact that she was standing on firm ground and that there were blossoming trees and mountain tops sticking out from the clouds. "It's beautiful…"

"We are at a planet I visited once; thought it would calm you down enough so that we could have a civil conversation. I am sorry about any… After effect… my little trick might have caused. What exactly did happen to you by the way? What made you attack me?"

"Well… I've been getting these… thoughts that are not mine." Du'grels voice had an undertone of concern when he said: "What kind of thoughts?"

"Umm… I've had a voice in my head that suggests me to… do things… With people… men to be exact…"

"So you've been getting horny? Okay, I can fix that." He searched the inside of his overcoat. "I think I have it somewhere in here…" He took out a spiked choker. "Umm… No. This would only make it worse…" He dropped it back into the mysterious confines of his coat and kept on searching the inside. Jinx couldn't help her curiosity so she peaked over his shoulder, into the depths of his coat.

It was more of an alternate dimension than an inside of a coat. But still it was both at the same time. First you saw a bottomless pit of emptiness with a shimmer inside it. Then suddenly there was only a piece of a silk-like cloth sewed in to the thick fabric of his overcoat, a rune etched on it. "Hurts your eyes if you look at it too long. I don't even bother on trying to understand how it works." He reached into the pocket and pulled out a shimmering object. He muttered a couple of short words and the object came into focus. It was a necklace. It was made out of an extremely thin golden chain and an obsidian jewel with a carved symbol on it. "Aah, there it is. This should help you cool down a bit, my lil' Jinxie."

Again he was talking like he owned her. So, she slapped him, a little too hard than necessary. "You're a hero! Stop being so social with me!"

"What does that have to do with anything? I happen to admire you." Once he was on the ground he saw Jinxes shoes. He quirked a eyebrow. "Does every single sorceress have a problem with their height? Come on now, you'll have to face it someday."

"Why won't you shut up already!" She launched a hex at his face. His eyes widened. He hadn't been expecting that, but his body still took in most of the blast. The bit that got through was enough to give him a minor burn. Symbols appeared on his skin and they were glowing in neon blue colour, there was a smudged symbol right under his right eye.

"Hey! What was that for?" He didn't notice the runes appearing on his skin. The runes were looking like a tribal tattoo when they spread across his skin. Slowly they played across his features and he still didn't notice the magical tattoos appearing on his skin. He got up and dusted himself off. He was smiling at her adoringly. "You're so cute when you get angry. It's worth the constant beatings." He touched the smudged rune on his face and his smile fell off, shattering to the ground. The colour on his face was gone. "What have you done…"

The runes progressed down to his neck and he grabbed his chest in obvious pain. There were some other physical changes: His mouth was spreading into jaws full of needle like teeth. He was trying to shake of his coat as a bulge on his back was growing rapidly. Jinx knew it was her fault and she jumped in and helped the overcoat off of him. He was growing rapidly in size and he was double his original size already.

He was thrashing around wildly and his newly formed tail was whipping the ground like a whip, the rock crackled where it hit. His frame was becoming much more buff. His muscles pulsed while they bulged and grew with his form. His skin grew hard and symmetrical patterns appeared on it, scales. Horns grew from where once were ears. He opened his growing jaws and let out a gurgling sound, he had trouble breathing. He started clawing at his chest and Jinx expected that he'd rip his chest open with those dagger-looking claws. Instead she heard a scraping sound that was usually was associated with metal scraping metal. She saw an armour-like chest plate on his chest. "Get away!" He managed to gurgle out of his mutating throat.

He staggered a few steps away from her and then fell through the clouds of mist covering the ground. Jinx took a step to follow him, but reconsidered when she remembered the way he just _fell._He didn't stumble and fall down, he fell through the clouds. She kicked the ground with her foot. She heard the peddles trickle down. It was hard to know what you're standing on with raised heels like hers. 'So, what if I have a problem with my height; I'm freaking tiny with my hair down and without these heels. I look like a twelve-year old. A cute twelve year old that's cheeks grannies want to pinch. I hate those old little wenches… What right do they have to pinch me?'

All Hive academy members have to go low from time to time and that meant that she had to leave the heels in the closet and go out wearing jeans or such normal clothing. Gizmo had made them all a pair of those holographic rings that Cyborg had used and they had an alternate identity to use when needed. Her ring made her look like a petite blond with sparkling light blue eyes. Mammoths aka wasn't that different from his own look, but he didn't have the fangs in his mouth and he looked just like any other extreme bodybuilder with a mullet. Seemore looked like a kid with glasses and Gizmo… Well, he looked like anyone he wanted because he was the one making the rings. 'I really hate being petite…'

She saw a majestic figure rise up from the clouds -she was clearly standing at a mountain top- It could be called majestic just for its humongous size, but it had a… presence to it. The first thing she saw was the horns sticking out through the clouds. At first she thought that some kind of ship was sailing through the clouds, but then the beasts head broke through to the sun filled sky. It inhaled deeply and Jinx heard the air rush past her and grabble under her feet get caught in the breeze. Its wings broke out and brought with them a torso covered in pearl-white scales that looked like armour plating. The creature had a swan-like neck that supported a head with a cave-like mouth full of spear-like teeth.

It glided over the mountains and Jinx was getting worried that if Du'grel had forgot about her. Or was that Du'grel after all? If she shouted after that thing she might just get the attention of a dangerous predator of this world. But that had to be Du'grel! He was turning into a lizard thingy before he fell… so he's either that huge dragon up there or he's a splattered down there. 'Well, he was my ticket out of here anyway, so I'm doomed anyway…'

"Hey, Du'grel! Don't you even think about dumping me out here!" She shot a hex at the humongous creature skimming the horizon. Its wings slashed the skies and it plunged back down to the clouds when the hex hit home. "Great, I killed it…" She felt the earth tremble when something landed right below the thick clouds. The thick clouds stirred when something huge moved under it.

**DO YOU HAVE ANY OF IDEA WHAT YOU HAVE DONE? THOSE SYMBOLS, THOSE RUNES, THEY WERE THERE TO KEEP ME IN CONTROL!**

"Ah! Stop it, Du'grel, it hurts." The beast rushed out of the clouds and its presence loomed over her. The mighty dragon raised her up to eye-level. Jinx hadn't put on the necklace Du'grel gave her and she had a hard time thinking with the dragons husky smell invading her senses. She tried to squirm away from the grasp of the serpents claws. Its head moved in closer and Jinx could smell the dragons breath. It smelled like winter and felt like the arctic wind on her skin.

**YOU ARE SO FRAIL… I COULD CRUSH YOU WITHOUT ANY EFFORT…** Du'grel took a good long sniff. Jinx could see straight into his nostrils. She saw a strange white glow emanating from the back of them. 'White fire?'

Du'grels eyes had been reptilian slits the whole time he had been a dragon. Now something in Jinxes smell took him out of his daze and they returned back to the gold and black hawk-eyes. **Jinx?** Air whizzed past her when Du'grel set her down on the ground. "Yes, Du'grel. What happened to you? Why are you a… Dragon?"

**Dragon? What's a dragon?** Du'grel tilted his crocodile-like head and he tried to raise his eyebrows, but his eyebrows were now a mere bone ridge above his eyes that held his slightly inward curved horns fixed into his head. It looked a lot like a crown if you thought about it. Jinx was thinking about it, among other things. She was trailing her hand on the scales of his front legs and feeling the claws that dug into the ground from holding the tremendous weight of Du'grels body. She had a glazed look in her eyes when she moved her hand up on one of Du'grels talons. 'So much power...'

**Ahem… The necklace, before you do something you'll regret** Du'grel extended his arm to the necklace and it was a slow and complicated process to get the necklace up without breaking it with his new talons of fingers. They were made for slashing and grabbing, not for precise work. Jinx watched the flexing of his muscles with drool dripping from her jaw. 'What the hell did I do to her? She has the hots for a lizard… a dragon.' He offered the necklace to Jinx. She didn't seem to even notice the small necklace when she grazed her hand over his scaled forearm.

Her hand touched the necklace and the glaze melted off of her eyes. She shook her head to clear it of any stray thoughts and took a step back from Du'grel, holding the necklace in a tight fist. "You… Did something to me again!" Her eyes glowed in neon pink, but the pendance she was holding on absorbed the energy she was about to release. **Now, lets be civilianised here. I did cause your "bitch in heat" behaviour, but I didn't make you want to be fucked by a dragon!** He moved his snowy-white head right in front of Jinx and narrowed his eyes menacingly. **But you did make me turn into a dragon. So if I were you, I would just shut up and only be concerned in how to make it right!** He slammed his whip-like tail to the ground to emphasize his words and the thunderous slam made Jinx flinch.

Du'grel growled deep in his throat and the sounds force made the ground tremble. A land-slide rumbled down the mountain and the ground shook even more. The ground beneath Du'grels behind legs grumbled and slid down the side of the mountain. He jumped up before he completely lost his footing and then he extended the wings folded on his back. Actually they were not wings made out of flesh and blood. The wings of a white dragon were - according to legend - a reflection of the dragons spirit, they were the dragons powers core and the fuel of their existence. They were shape-shifters by nature and they were considered worse than other dragons, even though they didn't usually tyrannise kingdoms. Their kingdom was of the mind. They were manipulators by nature and their presence forced emotions out of people around them. A full-blooded dragon would drive people around them crazy and make them form into an orgasmic mass while it would soak in the complex and powerful emotions that were released. Then he would drain the last bit of life out of the used up human mass and survive another day. To put it bluntly: They ate souls.

Du'grels wings looked like they were made out of thousands little shards of ice and when sun hit them they looked like they were made of pure sunlight when the light bounced off of the thousands and thousands of reflective surfaces. Jinxes jaw dropped by the beauty of the creature in front of her. 'Why does he want to hide this side of him? He's so beautiful…' She was a very romantic personality deep down and things like unicorns and knights in shining armour appealed to her. But dragons were presented as a violent breed of fire-blasting lizards. She was a sorcerer so she knew the cold, hard facts about dragons.

Number one: Each and every dragon has a force reserve that can be compared to a mid-sized sun. Two: Dragons see anything smaller than them a thing they have to control, and anything bigger than them something to challenge. Three: They felt no mercy or emotion. But their intelligence couldn't be compared to mere mortals mind capacity. Four: They can live forever if not killed. They don't age, they just grow larger and more powerful. She could evaluate that Du'grel was more than 2000 years old. The largest ever recorded was about the half of Du'grels size. So he was at least 4000 years old.

'What are you? You've been lying to me and your team mates about… everything.' Jinx didn't bother to try and shout her words to the snake soaring the skies over her. She knew from experience that he could hear her thoughts. **I have not been lying. Do you know any tricks to fix this rune, because I am aware of only one and I don't really want to resort to that.** He was circling the skies as his elemental wings shimmered around him, making him look like a projection of light when he gathered altitude and sang in a high pitched voice that made Jinxes eyes well up. **But before we do anything about my condition…** Strange figures started dancing in the air when his song turned into a series of low growls and grunts. Still, it somehow managed to sound very elegant and lyric.

Du'grel folded his wings back into his body and he dived down while letting out a roar full of _power, _power in its purest form of existence. It seeped out from under the thick, white armour plating-like scales and distorted the air around him and made him flicker like a image on the surface of water. She saw his form lunging down at her. She saw the rows of white needle-like teeth when Du'grel opened his mouth to let out a pillar of white light. She saw how her body disappeared into the white energy. 'Wait… He's done this before. Teleportation with a twist.'

AN: So, Du'grel's a dragon... Came as a surprise to me too, but it just seemed to fit. Review, please.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Note that I've been giving Du'grel a lot of head injuries recently. He fell of a tall building and landed on his face, Raven punched him under the right eye, Jinx slapped. And what really broke the rune was the fact that Jinx shot one of her hexes at Du'grels face and hit the place where there was a forming bruise, under the right eye. Magical damage.  
This is how the rune broke even if they have been there his whole life.  
It just seemed a good idea to explain that.

Why wont you flame me? I can take it.

Chapter 5

Things happened very fast: first of all there was an extremely bright flash of light and Jinx fell on the hood of the T-car looking dazed and disoriented. That didn't make Cyborg drive the T-car through the nearby stores front window. It was because of the huge white dragon that landed heavily on the street in front of the T-car that caused him to panic and lose control. Raven was the one riding shotgun just then and her eyes grew big as saucers and she breathed out a single word, a name: "Malchior."

The T-car had all possible safety gadgets that Cyborg had thought of and they were engulfed in white fluffy airbags in the second the T-car hit the store. "What happened? What Happened? Dude! Why is a cloud trying to smother me?" Beast Boy was back to normal… Robin had already cut himself loose from the airbags and seatbelt and was already running out to the street with Raven following closely behind. They were cut off when a huge eye filled the hole that the T-car had made. It had scales surrounding it, but you wouldn't know it without them. It was a huge golden orb with a glow that almost hid the small black spot in the middle of it. Its gaze grazed over them all and it made their skin crawl and the hair on the back of their necks to stand on end. There was some kind of _power_ radiating from it that felt like static electricity dancing on your skin.

There was a short grunt that made the ground vibrate slightly and the eye moved like the head would have nodded. The eye retreated and Robin let out a breath that he didn't even know he was holding. Beast Boy snaked out of the T-car and turned back into a human. "Was that a dragon? Is it Malchior? I thought he was in a book or something." There was a muttered curse and a boom when Cyborg broke out of the T-car. "I knew it was a mistake to install those things…" He pulled Starfire out of the car. "Whatever it is, it didn't actually attack us so lets not jump to conclusions."

Robin nodded and he led the Titans out to the street. They saw the dragon trying to fit on the street. It had its wings folded closely on its sides and its tail was swinging slowly in the air not to crush anyone on the street. It had its head close to the ground, above a still figure on the street. The person laying on the street had pink hair. "Oh fuck! We ran over Jinx!" Cyborg proclaimed. The dragon looked at him and then huffed as if to say "No shit, Sherlock." The dragon lifted its head up from the prone form of Jinx and let the Raven check her. She checked her injuries, secretly hoping to find claw marks or something that a dragon could make. She didn't find any. She looked at the dragon. 'Maybe all of them don't have to be evil. It seemed to be concerned about Jinx…' Its scales were a blinding white colour and looked like a suit of armour if it stood on its behind legs. Light reflected from them and made it hard to make out any details about its scales and thus they looked like skin at points and execrated the suit of armour illusion.

Raven healed Jinxes injuries and then started shook her to wake her up. She heard a low growl and the dragons eyes were staring at her. It didn't even have to move to be in her face. Its neck was about thirty feet long. Cyborg aimed the Sonic cannon at its nostril. He simply shook his head to the dragon. It ignored him completely. Starfires eyes were lit up and starbolts were at the ready on her hands. The dragon moved its gaze was over to her with hunger in its eyes.

Starfire looked at the creatures eyes. She hadn't noticed those spiralling formations the scales made around those golden orbs. The light that hit those spiralling scales seemed to flow into the eyes and add their power to those golden orbs of power. 'Beautiful… **Reminds you of home…** The morning dew in the mountains of Thus'ala. **Come, my pretty, come. Come to me…** I want to see them more closely… I'm pretty…' She was levitating closer to the dragon's slightly ajar mouth, never breaking eye-contact. She extended her hand when she was a foot away from the dragons open mouth. The world around her was filled with explosions and loud voices **Ignore them. They are irrelevant.** 'Yes, why should it matter…' "Starfire!" Light spirals down to the majestic abyss… 'Robin? **Ignore the fool! **'Robin is not a fool!'

Cyborg shot his cannon at the creature's eye in hopes of breaking the spell. The blast made the dragon blink and jerk its head back. The dragon turned its open mouth to Cyborg. A bright light shone from the dragons maw. Cyborg saw the white fire rushing from the back of its throat. Raven jumped in front of Cyborg and put up a shield of her black energy around them. The white fire connected with her shield and spread out from it to the street and cars on either side of them exploded. She felt how her shield was corroded by the white fire, but the dragon had some kind of seizure and its jaw shut with the side effect of the white fire bursting through its nostrils and causing it immense pain. Its tail swung in a long arch and swatted cars through the store windows.It backed away from Raven bashing its head to the buildings on either side of the street. The one on the left was a department store that was already cleared of people by the Jump City police department. On the right was a apartment building that was not entirely cleared yet and the dragons head smashed right through the structure. Robin was a quick thinker and threw a handful of explosive discs at the dragon's nostril. It roared and reflexively smacked the transformed Beast Boy off of its back with its surprisingly agile tail.The dragon rose on its behind legs and drew back its arm to hit Robin.

"Stop, Du'grel!" Jinx shouted when the dragon was about to cut Robin in half with a slice of its claws. The dragon froze and turned its gaze to Jinx. Jinx was standing up shakily with her eyes locked with the dragon. "Du'grel?" Said the Teen titans in unison with the mystical question markers appearing above their heads. All of them looked closer at the dragon's eyes. They had the same shone to them that Du'grels had, but they were just bigger and shinier. "So, he's a dragon then?" Raven asked Jinx. Anger made her voice sound shaky. Jinx opened her mouth to answer but stopped before anything could come out and tilted her head as if to listen to a voice that no one else could hear. "Umm… Not exactly, he's only part dragon but he does need specially crafted runes to keep the dragon in him under control." She walked over to the dragons lowered head and scratched it under its jaw. The dragon rumbled like a collapsing building and arched its long neck. It was purring deep in its chest. The rubble on the street bounced up and down and car-alarms sounded nearby. The dragon closed its eyes and enjoyed the touch. Jinx tilted her head again to listen to the dragon, but didn't stop scratching it. "He says he can't turn back into a human without help. The runes are forcing him to be a dragon now… He says he needs Ravens help… to complete the rune again."

"And who says I'll help him? He's a dragon,he's evil by nature. We can't and will not trust him." Ravens anger had evolved into the stage of cold and calculative hatred and her voice was compeletely flat and void of all emotion. Jinx tilted her head again and listened carefully. She opened her mouth to say somethin, but then hesitated. "Uhm... Are you sure... You should be the one person on this green earth that would have the decency to look through family connections." Jinx said and then backed away when Raven froze and her eyes flashed red.

The dragon grabbed Jinx and then flexed its legs and jumped in the air unfolding the giant wings when above street level and there were a mix of gasps of wonder and screams of fright when the city saw the white dragon in all its glory gliding leisurely above them. Its wings shone as bright as the morning sun. "Du'grel, what are you trying to do? I'm afraid of heights!" Jinx was pounding on Du'grels scaly fist wrapped around her. **Well, do you want to ride on my back? Would that help?** Jinx stopped struggling. She had always loved the worlds that the writers of those fantasy novels painted in your head. Of dragons and their noble warrior riders. It had always been her hidden fantasy to ride a dragon, or a unicorn, or a dolphin. "Yes, I think it would help..."

Du'grel raised her up on his back and settled her down between the colossal shoulders of his dragon form. She stood up and looked down at the arching length of his neck to see the T-tower getting bigger and bigger by the minute. "You do know I'm a villain? It's not good for me to hang out at the Titans tower. They'll arrest me and throw me in jail." Du'grels neck arched to the side enough that he could look at her with one eye. **I think I'm a Titan… Don't know how they'll react to this dragon thing though. I'll probably have to quit… You think they'll arrest me because I trashed the town a little? They do it all the time.** Jinx had also thought about that; why don't they get blamed if they throw a car at a villain, but if a villain throws a car at a hero then they start to sue you for destruction of property, public disturbance etc. "Nah! I don't think so, they wreck it all the time and they don't get arrested, so you should be fine." She looked at his back a little closer. Even though it was the size of an aircraft carrier it had small runes tattooed across it in strings that formed a pattern that made your eyes water if you trried to make it out. "How many of these runes are on you?"

**2467** "Wow... But if your dragon side is… feral, then who could have made these runes? Wouldn't you have just ripped the guy who tried to do it to pieces?" Du'grel turned his head back to facing the tower. **I wasn't always this powerful and big. I was born as a humanoid infant. These runes were forced on my skin when the dragon first surfaced. I had no idea that it had grown this big while it was locked away. Hah! I even almost forgot about my dragon heritage… **He snarled and a low growl escaped from his chest. **Do you know what Raven has against dragons? There was a massive dose of anger emanating from her. It felt like a deep grudge… I also heard her mention someone called Malchior?**

Jinx stopped to think. She had read reports about the whole incident with Malchior in the Hive academy's archives. The Hive had to keep a close eye on the heroes around the world to co-ordinate the Hives "lessons". And of course a couple of mystics in the Hives payroll had connected Malchior to get some information from the incident and whatever he could tell about the Teen Titans. He did live in one of the titans room.

"Well, I know that Malchior is a dragon that manipulated Raven to free him from a cursed book. And he did this by convincing Raven that he was the wizard that supposedly defeated the dread dragon Rurek. He also charmed Raven with compliments and convinced her that he loved her just to make her make irrational decions. He eventually got out of the book he was trapped in and started ripping their tower apart and was about to eat Raven when she pulled out the cursed book and trapped him in it… again." Jinx laid herself down on Du'grels back and enjoyed the warmth of the scales under her. She stretched leisurely like a cat on a couch and then laid still, letting a quiet purr escape her. "Du'grel?"

**Yes?**

"What exactly did you release in me? I've been doing a lot of things that only cats usually do. I never really thought I was partially a cat… I thought that my eyes were only a detail with no meaning." **… I'm not that sure that did I actually release something in you or did I let something you've been keeping out in.** Jinx was too relaxed to actually freak out so she only said in a menacing tone: "So you messed with my head without actually knowing what would happen?"

**It seemed liked a good idea at the time… You were a villain and I didn't actually want to beat you, so I improvised a little. **

"A little?" Jinx said in a sub-zero voice. She really wasn't that angry about it. Now, with the strange urges gone she felt better than ever. She was as agile as a cat and she suspected that she had nine lives now and she saw in the dark better than in the light. And she had a ability to relax more thoroughly than any human could. The keen sense of smell was a disadvantage with Mammoth around. Earlier he had had that kind of animalistic musky smell that appealed to the new side of her, but now he just had a very powerful smell. She just wanted Du'grel to squirm a little. **I'm sorry…** He said in a small sounding voice. And that was an accomplissement, noting how big he was now. Jinx smiled to herself and rested herself more comfortably on Du'grels warm scales. They eminated heat from the fiery blood running under them. "You'd better be." They were not the most comfortable surface, but Jinx did have a exceptional ability to relax everywhere it was safe and warm now. She felt herself drifting in to sleep and Du'grel didn't have the heart to tell her not to.

He had already arrived above Titans tower, but decided to wait for the occupants to come back before landing on it. The sleeping form of Jinx was a pleasant, but an almost unnoticeable, weight on his back. She had power inside her and his dragon side liked power, but usually it made him want to devour that power, drain it dry. Somehow, Jinxes power was different. It calmed him instead of making him act like a starving wild animal, like a dragon. The same thing applied to Raven, but her power was a negative thing so it didn't swing his moods to one side or the other. It had a weird backwards effect though, Raven seemed to always slam in to him when she tried to use her powers against him. He flapped his wings and rose almost directly up. He flapped them again and he was above the clouds. He made sure that his personal energy-shield kept the cold away from Jinx. He didn't have any problem seeing through the clouds, they were just water anyways and dragons had an kind of energy-sonar as an eight sense.

He saw how the townsfolk gawking at him and trying to find him among the clouds. One of the gawking people was very eccentric: He had only one eye and he wore a black armour with metal plates attached to strategic locations to protect him from attacks and give his strikes an edge. He wore a helmet, which was black on the side with no eye and a light brownish colour on the side that had one. A strange one indeed, but he did look kind of cool. Du'grel looked down and saw the titans on the roof of the tower. All of them had their head tilted up to look at the clouds. All accept Raven. She was not on the roof.

He decided to look at that helmet wearing guy a little closer. He cut the air with his wings and reality distorted around him and he appeared again behind the weird guy. He landed quietly as a shadow behind the guy and saw how the clouds twisted in the sky because of his trick. He moved his head right behind the helmet-wearing guy and let a growl escape his throat.

**Slade's point of view... **

Slade was very impressed by the dragon, at first he couldn't believe the reports of a mountain sized dragon appearing in the middle of the town. He even let himself to go and gawk at it when it flew over the city. He didn't notice the pink flash of colour in its fist. He was shocked by its colossal size and the way it could fly without flapping its wings. It clearly had power outside its size. But how to get that power and how to control it? He watched how the dragon flapped its wings once and rose up like a rocket 'So much power…' He tampered with a couple of buttons at the side of his mask and a green vizier covered the eyehole of his mask. He saw the dragon through the clouds now. He had installed a series of sensors on the right side of his mask and now he could see through thin walls, body heat, electronic activity and etc. He could see better with technology now than he could before when he had both of his eyes. The irony of it all…

'… Is it looking at me? Can it make me out from the rest of the town?' The dragon averted its eyes and looked down at the Titans tower. Slade relaxed a little. 'It's not after me. The real question is: Is it with me or against me?'

Slade saw how the dragon flexed its wings and then the sensors inside his mask melted and his skin was slightly burned, but he had almost no feeling on the right side of his face so he didn't notice. "Odd…" He pressed the buttons on the side of his mask again and again with nothing happening. "Must be the batteries…"

He heard a growl behind him that sounded like an avalanche crashing down a mountain. He froze. It was not something that he usually did, but he couldn't place that kind of sound to anything smaller than the dragon. 'I have explosives on my belt, but it probably breathes fire so those would not even make a scratch on it.' He turned slowly to face the humongous beast. He saw the two golden orbs that were its eyes a few feet away from him. He also saw fangs the length of his leg a couple of inches from his chest. 'If I try holding those jaws open with my something it will probably just breath fire at me.'

The dragon bared its fangs a little more in a gesture that was supposed to be a amused grin but looked like… Well, that the dragon bared its teeth a little more. It was more than enough to make Slade nervous like a rabbit in a trap. He had no way to fight the dragon and it looked hungry. Only thing he could was run, but his body didn't seem to take orders from him anymore. He had quite a shock when he found his head leaning closer to the dragons slightly open jaws. He looked with horror when he saw white fire boiling up in the back of the dragon's mouth. His one eye grew large when he saw the fire slowly flowing from the back of its throat and then dripping between the huge fangs in to a puddle of pure white fire that smelled like winter. The dragon spit out the last of the enchanted fire and jumped back up into the air without making a sound.

Slade found that he still couldn't move. He felt helpless and somehow betrayed. He had so much plans for that dragon. He watched how the white flames grew higher and spread even wider. _"What do you regret? How do you feel? Who are you? You are a broken man?"_ The fire whispered when it was only a hairs width away from his face. "I am Slade." It seemed like a part of some sort of ritual that required him to answer.

_"You will be restored. Remember who do you own your gratitude and you will live."_

The fire moved the remaining inch swallowing Slade's body and making it part of the flame.

Du'grel settled down on the roof of the T-tower and folded his wings close to his sides again and wrapped his tail around his legs like a cat. Still he only barely fit on the roof. He kept his back steady not to disturb Jinxes sleep. She did have to be awake in a minute, but still he didn't want her to wake up roughly. He had to tell Starfire not to get agitated, because the only reason he had attacked them was the fact that he wanted to devour Starfires natural solar energy. He looked at the ground, it was some kind of enforced concrete. He looked at his claws, they were made of the essence of all power and could cut through the fabric of existence if the conditions were right. He started scratching on the ground.

First he drew a simple arrow pointing to Starfire. He looked at Starfire and saw how she spun around in the air and checked if there was someone behind her. Du'grel chuckled. It came out as a aggressive sounding growl. Robin spun around with explosive discs between his fingers. 'Protective of her… They're so obvious.' He bowed his head again and scribbled something on the concrete again. He looked at what he had scribbled down and he tried to frown, but since he had no eyebrows his face didn't even seem to flinch. He had written down a rune of some sorts on the ground. He intended to simply write "Power down" or something, but the rune popped in to his head for some reason. He had no idea what it did, but still he completed it by breathing a small breath of fire on it.

The rune absorbed the fire and a hologram of him in his human form appeared above it. "I honestly had no idea what this rune would do." Were the holograms first words. Du'grel moved his mind into the hologram and looked at the Titans through the imaginary eyes of the hologram. "Well, isn't this conventional. I thought I'd be forced to speak through Jinx the whole time. First things first: I would appreciate if Starfire would be careful not to light up in any way. It makes me act kind of funny." The hologram figure smiled widely.

"Du'grel?" Robin said

"Yes, what troubles the personified traffic lights mind?"

A small moment of silence…

All of the Teen Titans burst out laughing (Excluding Robin of course). The other Teen Titans didn't notice that Raven was also laughing with the others. Not as hard, but still laughing harder than usual for her usual scale… Which was very low to begin with, but still it was very out of character for her. Du'grel had that effect on people. He had no idea this was so, because he had never had that much interaction with people that he would have noticed this. Du'grel saw this and smiled. 'About time she relaxed a little. She's a beautiful girl, but she should smile more.' He politely waited for the laughing to stop before speaking again.

"You're doing something to us… I don't laugh…" Raven managed to say between fits of laughter. She felt the laughter billowing from deep down inside her. It was her joy, not anyone else's, but it felt like it was forced out of her. She didn't want to laugh. Du'grel wanted her to laugh. His hologram flickered when uncertainty surfaced in his mind. He let go of the hologram and watched the scene with his own eyes, his dragon eyes. He noticed how the laughter was squeezed out of them. 'Am I doing that?'

**Jinx! **Du'grel yelled mentally.

"What, what, what?!" Jinx was pulled out of a pleasant dream involving ice cream and a pogo stick. The details were already fading and Jinx had a feeling that she didn't even want to remember them. She touched the necklace that Du'grel had given her and every single detail disappeared from her mind. She stretched a little and then jumped off of his back. She liked how easy and natural it felt to do a couple of back flips in the air and land on her feet. "Why did you wake me up?" She saw the hologram looking at her. "Cool trick. Why is everyone laughing? Why is Raven laughing?" Jinx asked, unaffected by Du'grel.

Du'grels voice was channeled through the hologram. "I think that I am to blame… Why is it so weird that Raven is laughing?" The hologram came to life again and the dragon closed its eyes, the holograms eyes started shining in bright gold. "I want my body back. And the worst thing is that the dragon feels so natural." The hologram shimmered around the edges and cringed: "I can't feel, so I make others feel for me…" The hologram fluttered in and out of existence. When the fluttering intensified there was an another figure mixed with Du'grels. It was a figure in a white robe with the hood up. The figure started to lower the hood...

The dragon roared with a voice that was so powerful that it caused an small localized earthquake and made the earth crackle on the small island that the tower was built on. It also made everyone to close their eyes when the invading figure managed to drop the hood. This was the reason he didn't want to be a dragon. He was just too powerful to do anything other than destroy. He knew that the dragon was made for fighting something as big and bigger things as it and even its voice was a weapon of sorts. The flame living inside him must have something to do with it.

Du'grel broke the rune by smashing his fist through it and into the tower. The figure faded away a second later. Du'grel drew his fist out of the hole it had made and intently looked at Ravens eyes. He was searching them for any sign of recognition recognition. Raven stared back with hate burning in her eyes that she didn't even try to hide. Du'grel felt every ounce of the hurt and sense of betrayal that lied behind the cold, all consuming hatred. 'At least Raven didn't recognize the priestess.' Du'grel thought. He didn't like this, it made his mission harder to complete. He had to cut a couple of corners now.

Du'grel sent Jinx what he wanted her to say. Jinx stepped closer to Raven and then said: "He says that it's either that you help him, or he's going to have to kill people to get back in to a human." Jinx said with fear in her voice. She wasn't sure if she was afraid of Du'grel or Raven, but it was either one of them and she had to be between them when they clearly despised each other. Ravens eyes narrowed. "Are you threatening me?" She managed to spit out with her anger reaching new heights.

"No, he's not. He's just saying that to complete the rune he'd have to do a ritual that requires blood and to get the amount of power he needs, he would have to ritually drain 12 people... Or get enough of your blood to paint the rune again. That's about a teaspoon of your blood." Jinx looked thoughtful and then shot a glance at Du'grel. Du'grel looked at Jinx and seemingly said something because Jinx tilted her head to the side again. It was clearly subconscious for her. "She is?" Jinx said in a hushed voice, as if she just heard something juicy.

Raven knew that she had heard something juicy. The question was: How did Du'grel know about it? She never told anyone about it. It kind of shunned people away when they knew about her heritage...

Logic: You want to know? Easy, just ask him. He can't lie to you. He'll have to answer you.

Raven: He can't talk either and he can tell Jinx not to tell me.

Logic: You don't get it. He _has _to answer you. Didn't you notice how he even answered your question when he was separated from his body? It is a very powerful curse that someone had laid upon him. He'll take over Jinxes body if he has to, but he will answer you. Now you should get back to the real world before they rush to conclusions.

Brave: Where are you, sugar lumps?

Logic: Shit! I was not here, understand? Don't let her find me. She's just... You propably don't want to know what she is... (Runs away and hides behind a nearby rock.)

Brave: Ah, Raven, have you seen Logic around? I can't seem to find her. I'm sure that she's trying to hide from me. YOU CAN RUN, BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE, PUMPKIN!

Raven: Is that a... strap on?

Brave: Yes, what about it? Have you seen Logic or not?

Raven: Nothing, I just thought... No, I have not seen her. Nope. Never. Ande she is not hiding behind that rock over there... Why did I say that? Run, Logic, run!

The movie freakie side of Raven: "Life is like a box of chocolates." And it's supposed to be "Forrest" not "Logic". Stupid bitch.

Raven: What the hell are you talking about?

The movie freakie side of Raven: You know, it's from "Forrest Gump". You saw it late at night when you couldn't sleep and decided to rot your brain to sleep by watching TV. By the way... Why did you watch that much of german porn? I'm scarred for life... Horny little slut.

Raven: I...

Brave: Got ya, sweetie!

Logic: Thanks a lot, Raven! Now I'm fucked.

Brave: Not yet, sugar, but soon you will be...

Raven: What german porn? I've never watched german porn in my life.

The movie freakie side of Raven: German, american, puertorican, what ever! The bottom line is that it was SICK! S-I-C-K! How the hell does that kind of stuff end up being aired after Forrest Gump? You're all sentimental from Forrest Gump and then - WA-BANG! There's a guy in a mustache stuffing himself in some other guy with a mustache and this mustache guy is stuffing it in to some hairy chick with a cigar in her mouth. And then when you watch closer you notice that the brown thing dangling from his mout is not a Cigar, it's a fucking dried up piece of shit! What the hell is wrong with you, Raven!? I'm part of you and I can't figure it out, so god give strength to the poor, poor shrink that ends up patching up your wounded soul! He'll be admitted in a week to join the rest of us nutcases!

Raven: Now wait a minute!

The movie freakie side of Raven: Can't. You gotta go. Bye. You fucking bitch

**Ding-a-ding-ding **

"What did you do to Raven?" Beast Boy shouted to Du'grel. He had been oddly quiet the whole time of the rooftop negotiation. So had the other Titans for that matter. Raven had a suspicion that Du'grel had kept them quiet somehow. It propably wasn't even that mutch of a trick to him, now that he had all the dragons power for him to use. And he was able to make them trust him in a very short period of time even without the dragons power.

"He didn't do nothing! Stay back or I'll blast all of you!" Jinx yelled with her eyes blazing in neon pink. Starfire was staying back from the action because she didn't want to tick off the dragon, but she was ready to jump into battle if she was needed. But if she did jump into battle she would draw the attention of those eyes again. Those eyes with the spiralling formations around them that made you want to drown in them, embrace their power and become one with it... She was afraid of those eyes.

Something was happening to Du'grel this whole time the Titans and Jinx were arguing. A thing that no one even noticed, but something that they should have. Du'grel should have known to be careful, but the dragon had been dormant for so long that he had started under estimating it. Thinking that it was only a part of him that couldn't be controlled. It was something much more. He should have known that what ever was in Jinx that supressed the dragons egoistical mind was only a temporary solution. He really didn't have time for this.

**Are you giving us the blood or not? I'm running out of time!**

Raven and the other Titans grabbed their head to stop them from exploding. The dragons thoughts slammed through their minds. It felt like every word was etched in to your cranium with a burning scalpel. Exactly like a scalpel. It cleanly cut through your mind and carved the message and snuk out the way it came. A real professionals work.

Raven got back up (She fell to the ground from Du'grels mental attack.) and looked defiantly into Du'grels eyes. "Why should I trust you? You could do a number of things with my blood and you've been manipulating our thoughts from the start. You made us trust you."

"Then if you don't trust us to do it, then do it yourself. I'm sure you know how." Jinx said withouth tilting her head before she said it, so it was probably her own thoughts. This reassured Raven a little. At least she knew what Jinx was, even if it was her arch enemy. Du'grel was a menace. But to the fact of what kind of menace: She had no idea. But if any of the things Jinx had said were true, and if the feeling of was true; She had to do it.

"Okay. I reckon I really don't have a choice in this anyways." She clanced at Du'grels claws. Jinx looked hurt, but Du'grel just kept staring at Raven. He was waiting for the rune to be fixed, he was feeling how something was trying to take control of his body. He felt the hunger for violence already growing inside of him and he started to see a heat trail around the Titans and Jinx. A serpents sight.

He watched as Raven picked up a sharp piece of concrete and sliced her palm deeply. Unusually thick dark red blood seeped out of the wound. Du'grel gestured for Raven to step forward and lowered his head to lie on the ground. He heard how Jinx described the symbol to the best of her ability and then felt how Raven levitated up to his right eye and felt how she applied the crimsom body paint on his scales. He felt how her blood burned through his scales and etched a permanent mark on his otherwise inpenetrable scales. The rune was complete yet again.

He raised his head and felt how the runes were starting to take effect. They shone brightly and started moving across the scales, forcing the giant figure to shrink back into a human. It was a fast, but violent transformation. The runes were like thin metal string on him that constricted his chest more and more by every second that dug into his skin and forced white fire to seep out. The scales burned off and the dragon was now reduced to a flame burning at the top of the Titans tower. The flame imploded into a man-sized and shaped pillar of light and when the light faded off...

Du'grel collapsed on the roof of the T-tower. He had no clothes on, since he left his overcoat back on that mystery planet and the other clothes had also been ripped off him when he transformed. He fell face first to the solid concrete and stayed there like that. Out cold and buck naked. Jinx or Raven didn't even move. Raven was healing the wound on her palm and Jinx was holding on to a necklace with a deathgrip. Raven wondered if Du'grel gave it to her. 'He had a strange interest in her... and in me...' She still had the flower that he gave to her for an apology in a vaze on her nightstand. It helped hercalm down and meditate, so she hadn't threwn it away. At least that's what she told herself.

5 minutes passed. The other titans woke up and jumped to their feet one by one. They were unconscious while Raven fixed Du'grel and knew nothing of it. They were stil abnormally silent for their usual demeanor, but Du'grel was still here so he was still affecting them. "Uhm... We can't leave him like that. What are we going to do with him?" Jinx said while still holding the necklace like her life depended on it. IfDu'grel gave it to her it probably did. She just looked at the necklace. There was something familiar about it. She had a feeling she had seen it before...

"Can I see that?" Raven said and stepped in closer to look at the necklace. Jinx unclenched her fist, but didn't take it off. Raven examined it and stepped even closer when shenoticed the delicate looking symbol carve on the obsidian gem. Raven leaned in even closer to look at the thin golden chain. "Did Du'grel give you this? Where did he get it?" She looked up and noticed how close to Jinx she was. She was close enough to smell her parfume. Or was that just her natural odour? She felt Jinxes breath on her cheek. She was definetily too close for comfort, but if that was the case; Why was she so comfortable.

Lust: Go on, kiss her! This is your change to find out if you like girls or not.

Raven: I can't do that, everyone's watching!

Lust: So? We're in your mind and we're not ashamed at all. You can always say that Du'grel made you do it. Now go and do it already.

Ring-a-ding-ding

Raven felt how she leaned in and kissed Jinx lightly at first, but Jinx grapped her head with both hands and deepened the kiss into a passionate tongue wrestling. Jinx was winning, but Raven also started to shove her tongue down Jinxes throat and she quickly got the upper hand in this battle of tongues. Raven circled her arms around Jinx and pressed her against herself. Jinx did the same and started dry humping Raven and caressing her back gently.

The effect of this surprising show of affection (and more) waried from one Titan to Titan, but first all of their jaws dropped to their ankles and they just stood there with their mouths hanging wide open. Flies flew in and out with delight. After about 30 seconds of that it got interesting: Starfire dived through the roof and into the kitchen to get some mustard to calm her nerves. Robin knocked himself out with his staff (The titanium one. I know what you are thinking and it makes me sick) and fell down. Sparks flew from Cyborgs neck and the electronic side of his face exploded. Beast Boy turned into an otter and started to run around in circles. Why an otter? Who knows...

Du'grel woke up and saw the show in front of him. He immediatly got an erection, but didn't pay atention to it. He got up into a sitting position and watched the show with drool dripping from his mouth. He said a couple of words and his overcoat appeared from thin air and landed on his lap. It covered up his erected member, but there was a noticeable bulge. "I'm in heaven... I died and went to heaven. There's no other explenation for this."

Jinx started moving her hands over Ravens back and gently caressed her butt and thighs. Then she moved to the front and started to go upwards and was urprised by how firm her abs were. 'And I thought that she was a bookworm, she works out.' She knew that this was not right, but without the necklace keeping her desires at bay she just did not care. Why did Raven even start this? She had lookedup in to her eyes and then she zoned out for a while and then she just leaned in to kiss her. She just went crazy without the amulet in direct physical contact and started shuving her tongue down Ravens throat. Jinx found her way to Ravens chest and her hands eagerly squeesed the titans breasts. Jinx let out a sound of delight when Raven moaned because of her touch.

Du'grel was the happiest man alive for all he knew when he watched the two gothic girls make out. He had no idea why did the other Titans reacted the way they did, but according to Raven it was because of him. He trusted Ravens judgement, but he hadn't done anything to them on purpose. Maybe it was something that he did reflexively around people to stop them fromgetting out the pitch forks. No one really had trusted him in his life and he had noidea that the way they trusted him on the spot was unnatural.

But Raven was not going to trust him after this and now he was forced to become a villain to complete his mission. Being a hero she didn't trust did not pay off in the long run, so he's just going to be a villain that nobody trusts. He could do just about everything as a villain, so initiating plan B would be easy. He had the dragons power behind him so they could not defeat him, but he still needed more...

Du'grel loved watching them make out, but it just started to seem wrong when Raven started moaning. He got up and the overcoat snaked on him to cover him up. He walked over to them. They didn't even notice him. They were too busy noticing each others mouths and bodies. "Ahem..." Du'grel to get them to stop without hurting anybody or touching them.

They kept on kissing like entwined octopusses... 'Where did that image come from? Now I can't shake it...' Oh well... Ahem, ladies... Raven took a step back and let out a small whine because of the pain. Jinx heard Du'grel, but it didn't cause any kind of pain to her and she didn't even quite listen to him at the moment. The necklace fell back on her skin and the most of the burning died down. She could explain why she answered the kiss, but why did Raven start kissing her in the first place?

Raven saw the stunned expression that fell on Jinxes face. She was just as stunned herself from what she had done. Now the urge to kiss and fondle Jinx was fading away, but se could also hear a satisfied humming from the back of her head. 'Did Lust just take over my body?' She was stunned and infuriated. Du'grel was the one that messed her up in the first place! "You did something, didn't you!" There was absolutely no question in her voice. She honestly believed that Du'grel had drawn out Lust from her mind and make her kiss Jinx.

Yeah, Du'grel! What did you do to her?" Jinx said and turned to Du'grel. He raised both of his hands up in a defencive manner.

"Hey, I loved watching it, sure, but I did not do anything to make you do it... At least not on purpose." He smiled meakly and then took a step back when both of the girls eyes flared in different shades of red. Jinx was already gathering up a hex to hit him with, but then she remembered what happened the last time she had hexed him. She forced her hands to her sides. She focused on keeping herself in control and her new necklace absorbed her anger and she felt how a feeling of peace and serenity flooded into her mind. She felt like nothing was and could not go wrong in the world. The feeling only lasted for a split second, but the shock when reality hit her was as crushing as a drug addicts when their high wears off. She felt like she couldn't breath and she tried as hard as she could not to start crying for the world that never really cared about nobody and that had more hurt than comfort in it.

"Jinx, are you alright?" Jinx looked up and saw Du'grel standing in front of her with a concerned expression on his face. By the way Ravens head snapped to look at Du'grel, Jinx put together that Du'grel had teleported to her, or "shimmered" if you like to put it that way. She felt how tears started to burn her eyes and turned her face away. She said she was okay and Du'grel stepped back, taking the hint. He was catching on quick. It probably was because he was telepathic, because otherwise he was as clueless as any other guy. But at least he had the decency to admit it.

Jinx heard the following conversation:

Du'grel: So, I gather that this is not going to work anymore. The whole hero thing. Not since you know about my heritage.

Rude: As far as I'm concerned, no, it will not.

Du'grel: Well, that's kind of a relief. It's a lot easier to do if I'm a villain, or whateever you want to call it. I'm free as a bird to do as I please. Woohoo. Doesn't Robin or the other guys have anything to say about this? What's wrong with them? They've been quiet, have they not.

Raven: You paralyzed them. They can't move.

Lust: Fuck me.

Du'grel: I did? Well' it's not on... Uh... No? Where did that come from?

Rude: Just do it, bitch!

Du'grel: Maybe later. I'll be leaving now...

Raven: What is that thing that is easier to do if you're a villain?

Du'grel: ...It is an... errain I was sent on and it includes some shady business. People are going to get hurt... I made a promise I can not break and all that...

Intelligence: Who sent you?

Du'grel: Your... parent, you know.

Logic: Trigon. He's banished from this world, what does he want now?

The movie freakie side of Raven: German porn.

Masochistic: Whips and chains.

Happy: Chocolate, and maybe some cotton candy, but he's a chocolate kinda guy.

Timid: He's going to kill us all!

Happy: Oh, just shut up and kiss me, sweetie.

Lust: He wants me.

Sarcastic: Hah!

Lust: Found ya at last, Sarcastic! Come here you little runaway!

Sarcastic: No, I'm not Sarcastic!

Du'grel: This is way too weird! I'm leaving!

Jinx turned back to face them now that her tears had dried up. She saw Du'grel and Raven staring at eachother. They were either trying to see a hint of doupt or a lie in each other eyes, or there was a battle of wills going on that she was unaware of. That propably was the case and she couldn't care less. She walked up to Du'grel and after a moment of hesitation kicked him right below the knee. He snapped out of the starefest and jumped twelwe feet in the air.

"Au! What was that for?" He said after slowly hovering back down. He was rubbing his knee and he had a frown on his face. He was confused yet again. "Are you gonna give me a lift out of here or not? I can't fly ya know." Jinx said with her temper flaring up again. That seemed to happen a lot around Du'grel.

He nodded and grapped her by the waist. He started flying towards the city in a speed that made Jinx get out of breath. She could see the wings that gave Du'grel the ability to fly. They were made out of elemental light and in sunlight they were just a shimmer tha you could barely see. Jinx saw the outline of wings that were as wide as the street below them and maybe even bigger as they seemed to pass through solid objects like they were nothing.

The unusual part was that the wings didn't sprout from his back; The shimmer engulfed his form and then spread out into from his sides a pair of ghost-like wings. Jinx felt the slight pressure when the shimmer was holding them up. It kept her close to Du'grels body, but still it felt that it would give away just enough for her to break free if she would like to. He was seemingly learning about the importance of free will.

"What are you going to do now? Where are you going to go now?" Jinx asked while positioning herself more comfortably on his arms.

"I don't konw. I'm a villain now, so I should just get on with it and to something evil."

"Evil like: robbing a bank?"

"Yeah, if you want to. I was actually thinking of something else..." He said this and his thoughts obviosly trailed off.

"You know you can always come stay with the Hive five if you'd like. We need a strong silent type around there that doesn't have the IQ of a dung beetle." Jinx puffed with agitation and punched Du'grel in the arm. He didn't even seem to notice it.

"I'll think about it. I'll be sure to stick around though." He circled the sky and then dove straight for the ground with wind whissing past them flew trough the building that housed the Hive five's new lair and Jinx only felt how the shimmers pressure intensified when they passed through the concrete walls of the building. He let her go on the doorstep to her room. "I didn't bother on knocking, since you live here and all that. I think I saw them freaking out when we passed them a second ago. Funny." He stepped back and seemed to be waiting for her permission to leave. He was practically squirming.

"I'm not gay. I don't know what possessed Raven to kiss me, but my end of the kiss was only because of the necklace wasn't on my skin." She slapped him across the face with a trout. "How dare you question my sexuality! You... Where did this trout come from?" She was still wondering about the origins of the mystery trout when Du'grel deciced to get a word in to the conversation.

"No, it's not that. It's actually more of a private matter." He said, still squirming. His hands trying to discretely cover up the bulge forming on his pants. (The pants appeared earlier from the mysterious confines of his overcoat)

"Huh? What do you mean... Ha! Wait, I gotta say this: Is that a salami in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" Jinx supported herself on a wall and slid down to the floor, laughing her head off. She recovered after a couple of minutes. "Huh! That was good. Oh, it's still up. And it got even bigger..." JInx desperately glutched the necklace in her hands, but still she couldn't get her eyes of the still growing bulge in Du'grels pants. She felt how saliva flooded her mouth and drool started dripping from the side of her mouth. She realized she was on her knees in front of Du'grel and she looked up to his eyes. They were shining down on her. They shone even brighter from his arousal, but there was a noticeable amount of hesitation in his eyes. He reflected her emotions to the letter. Or was it the other way around? Raven did talk about something that he affects people around him...

Will that bulge ever stop growing? That gotta be at least ten inches... And he's wearing jeans... Jinx was aware of the amount of saliva dripping on the floor, but she just couldn't help herself. Right now she didn't care if her emotions were induced by that trick Du'grelhad pulled on her libido... Do women have a libido, or is that a man thing? Well, her sex drive anyways.

"Come here for a second." Jinx said grabbed the bulge in Du'grels pants and dragged him in her room.

"But... What..."

"Shut up."

"Okay..."

Zip

Twang

"Holy shit!"

"What's wrong?"

"Absolutely nothing. Everythings peachy actually..."

"Why are you grinning like that?"

"No reason..."

"Hey! What are you doing?!"

"Do you want me to stop?"

"Uhm... No, keep on going..."

"Mmm..."

* * *

AN: That was chapter five, folks! If you're pissed off because of the ending, do tell me, it can change, but I don't know if it will... But you can always try. Sorry for this taking so long, but I actually had to write this chapter, since I had already gotten the first four chapters done when I started posting them, it took very little time to edit them and post them. No, I do not know how long it will take to get Chapter six up, but I'll work as fast as I can. 

Okay... See ya!

Crazy laughter


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

"Did you use any of that magic on me just now?" Jinx asked while curling up beside Du'grel.

"You mean the stuff I used on you the first time we met? No, I didn't. Should I have?" Du'grel said, being more relaxed than he had ever been. He was playing with Jinx's hair that was out of the weird hair due that it had been so far. It was hanging in loose pink curls on his chest. It tickled him, but he was ready to live with that. He was ready to live with right about everything just now.

"No, you don't need it. You're a natural." She closed her eyes and listened to Du'grels heartbeat. It was a reminder of the fact that he wasn't human, but it still calmed her. It was much slower than a human's heartbeat, but it was also more powerful and his whole chest moved with it. It was also a much better sleeping aid. She felt how she was already drifting into sleep.

"Jinx?"

"Yeah?"

"What did we just do?" Du'grel had a genuine questioning tone in his voice. He was serious. Seemingly he really was a natural at this. Jinx felt like laughing, but kept it in because he had done some wonderful things to her last night, so she felt like she owned him that much. "We had sex, Du'grel. S-E-X." At least she didn't laugh. Jinx didn't know this, but Du'grel wouldn't have minded to hear her laugh. It would have lead to a couple of things but he was sure that neither of them would have minded about those things happening.

"Oh, is that what it's called?" Jinx had the feeling that Du'grel was trying to make her laugh but she had an idea on where would it lead and she was already unsure if her feet would carry her. She held the laughter in with all she could. She managed to suppress the oncoming laughter into a muffled giggle on his chest.

They were silent for a minute. Jinx was excepting for Du'grels "member" to start rising any minute now with mixed feelings. She wasn't sure if she sighed out of disappointment or relief when it didn't. They listened to each other's hearts beating for a couple of perfectly calm moments. Du'grel was able to hear her heart without physical contact, but he would've liked physical contact to her chest very much. He had no idea where these emotions were coming from. All of it was new to him. He didn't mind at all though. He liked this. He liked this very much.

"I need a shower." Jinx said suddenly and moved her legs a little to test if they would carry her weight. "You need a what?" Du'grel asked again with the genuine curiosity. Jinx got another reminder that he was not from earth.

"How long have you been here exactly?" She asked when she flung her legs off the side of the bed. She felt dizzy and the world seemed tilt out of place for a while. How long had she been in bed? It was more than just the night…

Lets see: They started robbing the bank around ten in the morning and didn't set off the alarms off in another half an hour. Five minutes later the Teen Titans (Why the capital letters?) showed up. For her part the fight took about fifteen minutes and then Du'grel kidnapped her to that weird planet. Though it was beautiful. How long did they spend there? How long did it take to get there in real life? Lets just say an hour in and an hour out. Then maybe half an hour of being there and talking and the stuff that happened. So did they get back here around noon? It was a little later but still they would have spent at least thirty hours in bed. According to her math of course.

If it was true; Talk about stamina… She turned her head to look at Du'grel who was also getting out of bed. He got up and almost immediately fell on his face on the floor. He groaned and got back up. "I need breakfast…" He muttered when he stood still for a second and blinked to get the spots out of his eyes. Jinx knew that she would end up the same if she tried to get up but she just couldn't hold the laughter in. She felt too good, Lightheaded. She fell back on the bed and laughed more freely than in years. She kept on laughing until she thought she would pass out if she didn't stop to breath. She caught her breath and then kept on laughing.

Du'grel looked at her for a minute and then took the time to find his pants and his overcoat and calmly waited for Jinx to get rational again. It took a good long ten minutes for her to stop laughing and then another five minutes for her to get her breathing in check. When Jinx looked up at him with tears still rolling from her eyes from laughing so hard he asked where was the kitchen in this place and what would she have. Jinx said that she should be the one to get the breakfast but Du'grel insisted in getting it for her. He would just turn into her and get it so that there would not be any embarrassing questions. Jinx asked him why did he tell her this just now and not during the night. He shrugged and went to get breakfast.

He appeared back in five minutes that felt like hours for her. When Du'grel wasn't there to take her thoughts away from it, her hunger felt that much worse. He was carrying a huge mountain of bacon, multiple bowls of cereal, milk, orange juice and another mountain of chocolate. How he managed fit all of this in two hands Jinx never could figure out, but she didn't think about that at the moment. All she knew was that there was food in the immediate vicinity and she wasn't eating it. Does not compute.

She ate half of the mountain of bacon, 4 bowls of cereal with milk, 6 glasses of orange juice and one third of the mountain of chocolate.

Du'grel ate the other half of the mountain of bacon, 6 bowls of cereal with milk, the rest of the orange juice, maple syrup, the three thirds that were left of the mountain of chocolate and a trout. Jinx had no idea where he got the maple syrup or the trout but she drank the rest of the maple syrup and checked if the trout was made out of rubber. It wasn't. She was wondering why did she think it was made out of rubber, but then Du´grel interrupted her thoughts.

"To answer your question: I've been here about ten days." He said when he had stopped stuffing his face. He laid back on the bed "How about that shower? Are we going or not?" Jinx looked at him and then smirked. Du'grel looked like he was about to ask why was she smirking like that. He stopped himself before he would. He had come to know and love that smirk and what usually followed after it.

"A shower is a very tight space, usually people go alone, but I think I'll have to show you how to use it." She grinned a little wider. She got out of bed and guided Du'grel into her bathroom. She had her own bathroom when the others in the team had to use communal showers. There were certain perks in being the only girl in a team that consisted of teenage boys. There were more downsides than upsides though.

They entered her bathroom and Du'grel stopped at the door. He looked extremely suspicious when he was looking around the room. "What is it?" Jinx asked, looking up to his eyes. She realized how small she was compared to him now. She had to tilt her head up to look at him in the eye. They were equal while horizontal, but now she felt too small for comfort. Du'grel looked back at her eyes after scanning the room. "This is the shower? Will there be water involved?"

Jinx's lips quirked a little. "No, this is the bathroom. That's the shower. There will be water involved, that's kinda the point." She pointed at the shower booth. Du'grel swallowed hard and measured the booth in his mind. The small booth reminded him of something... A past long forgotten... "Oh, really? I think I'm just fine. I don't need a shower right now." He smiled nervously and staggered away from the doorway. Jinx had never seen him this nervous. Is he claustrophobic?Sure seems like it.

"Du'grel, what's wrong?" Jinx stepped closer to him and took his hand. He looked at her and then turned back to look at the shower. Like he was afraid to turn his back to it. "Nothing's wrong. It's just…" His eyes never left the shower booth. "It's a freaking coffin…" Jinx felt like hugging him. Then she wondered what was stopping her and wrapped her arms around his chest and pressed her face on his chest. She could smell his distinctive fragrance; He smelled like snow, ice and winter in general. Now she could smell herself on him. She blushed furiously for this simple reminder of what they had just done. She hid her face on his chest. He also wrapped his hands around her and she heard how he sniffed her hair. He had proofed that he thought that she was delicious to him. There were bitemarks all over her body.

"You're afraid of closed spaces, right? It's okay to be afraid, Du'grel. It's what makes us human."

"I'm not human… Not entirely. I'm a freak of nature… Or whatever created me anyways." He sniffed her hair again and then spoke with her hair muffling his voice. "You're delicious, Jinx. Did I bite you in any point?" His hand skimmed her neck and she winced when it touched the bite marks. It would have hurt even more if Du'grel had normal teeth, but he had very two pairs of sharp fangs that made small clean puncture marks. He also had something in his saliva that numbed it just enough that it would not hurt, but so that you can feel the teeth sinking in. If you didn't know better you'd think he was a vampire. "I had a hard time to resist the urge to bite down while… What's it called? When I licked your private parts?"

Jinx blushed even more furiously. "You don't know much about decency, do you? People don't bring those things up when in company. Just so you know."

"Well is it okay to talk about it with you? If not: There's something seriously wrong with this world." He didn't have a questioning tone in his voice now. Was he being sarcastic? Probably. "Yeah, that's okay. You can talk about anything and do right about everything in the privacy of your own home." Jinx said and moved away from him. Du'grel either didn't notice or just didn't want to let her go just yet. Either way, Jinx had to tell him to let go and he did, but with a disappointed look on his face. Then he flinched and turned his face up to the ceiling. "I don't know about that privacy part…" He muttered as his face twisted into a scary looking grin that showed more needle-like fangs than any grin ever should.

"Is it Seemore? I've had a feeling that that freak has been watching me." Jinx said and pulled on a bathing robe to cover her body. Du'grels eyes were complete pools of golden light now. Jinx figured it was a sign of extreme anger. Jinx was touched; He was jealous. Du'grel only nodded and raised his hand up to the ceiling. It was engulfed in his own white fire in a matter of seconds. "Can I shoot his eye out? He wouldn't necessarily die. Only probably." His voice was extremely cold in more ways than one and it had a pronounced hiss in it. She saw how his breath came out as a cloud. She also felt tempted on killing the bug-eyed freak, but knowing Du'grel he would actually do it if she didn't stop him. "No. Don't kill him, but rough him up a little for me, will ya."

He blinked and his eyes turned back into his trademark raptors eyes. He looked at her and gave the warmest grin that you could give with overdeveloped fangs. He seemed to notice the white flames on his arm just now and waved his hand... Well, like it was on fire and tried to put it out. It only burned a little bit brighter for a second, but didn't go out. "Hmm… I'll have to try something." He put his hand on top of his head, but hesitated there with his hand almost touching his hair. He shrugged and laid his hand down on his hair. There was only one flash of flames and his hair looked like intense white flames for a second. He waved his arm around as I to try if it would set on fire again. It didn't. Then he remembered why his hand was on fire in the first place and set his sights back on the ceiling.

Reality wrapped around him and he disappeared in a rift that he had created. So that's how he does it. How could I see that? Oh well.. Jinx walked into the shower, but waited until she heard the first distant crash that was probably caused by a scrawny pervert flying through a wall. She let the robe fall off of her to the floor and then kicked it out of the shower before letting the water run. She tuned out the loud crashes and screams from upstairs and let his mind wander. If Du'grel wouldn't stop beating the living daylights out of Seemore the rest of the Hive five would interfere soon.

Now with the water running on her skin she felt the aftermath of having sex the whole night with a guy like Du'grel. She had bite marks all over her body and she had to be careful while washing them, since some of them were deep enough to seriously hurt. She had no doubt that it had been the best night she'll probably ever have, but now she was worried if some of these bites could get infected. He was a very passionate lover, but judging from the scratch marks she had seen on his back, arms and chest, so was she.

Her memory about the night before was blurry at best and it was hard to remember any details after she had invited him into her room. He had been stunned at first about the things she wanted him to do, but he was quick to do what he was told. After a little stumbling at the beginning he was a natural at it. She could only remember that he constantly raised her on his shoulders and that he also had an unnaturally long tongue. He did think she was delicious, at least judging from the way he stuck his tongue in her and lapped her up until she thought she would go crazy. She wasn't sure if his tongue was forked, but she wouldn't mind if it was…

Had she always been this perverted or was this a new thing? Well, frankly she didn't care. She had a amazing alien-lover. There's not a whole lot of people that can say that. Well, Robin might, but she had her doubts about his sexuality. Would a straight man wear that kind of mini-cape and green tights? And the hair…

She screamed when she felt arms snake around her. She was not accustomed in having someone in the shower with her, so she struggled to get out of the iron grip that encircled her. When she realized who it probably was. She was surprised, but realized why the grip hadn't loosened at all when she struggled. She turned her head around as far as it would go and saw a strand of white hair in the corner of her eye. The other thing was his hair. It was always warm like it was warmed by sunlight if you touched it, but if you look at it closely you'll be ready to swear that there's frost forming the strands of hair.

"Why did you decide to join me anyways?" Jinx said and just laid back on his arms. He leaned his head on her shoulder and kissed her on the side of her mouth. He was more gentle with her than he had ever been. Affectionate. "So, you decided to…" She did start to feel his strong and powerful pulse on her thigh, but she also felt how he shook his head on her shoulder. She felt how his cock was getting harder with the slow and powerful pulse. "Le- lets get these tended first." He kissed the several bite marks on her neck to clarify what he meant. She winced when his lips grazed over the punctured skin. The numbing that his saliva caused was starting to wear off and the pain would be hellish if nothing was done.

He was terrified to be in such a small space and he was not going to let her go. The water somehow made it that much worse. He clearly had had a traumatizing experience for it to have such an effect on him. She should ask him about that sometime. That would have to wait, since now she was too distracted by his steady pulse weighing in her back and by the now rising pain on the several bite marks all over her body. He had been like an animal and as he had said; he thought she was delicious. She had also tried to taste his blood, but his skin was too tough for her teeth. For some reason her scratch marks were still on him though.

He grabbed her arm by the wrist and held it up so he could see the four bloody dots on her arm. He had fangs on the bottom half of his jaw as well. Jinx was starting to feel dizzy from the blood loss. Her legs gave out and Du'grel held her tighter. She hadn't noticed that many of the bite marks had started to bleed when the water dissolved the dried up blood. Du'grel must have done something so that she would not dry up in bed. He was concerned about her life now, but he also smelled her blood and arousal and had a hard time keeping his thoughts straight. Jinx was starting to go limp in his arms. She felt so cold that he was starting to wonder if he was too late. He hated himself for the way that he found the scent of her blood so alluring. He started signing, because he didn't know of any other way to help her.

His singing was a thing he used frequently and a thing he could do well, but he had no idea how he'd come to know the songs he sang to shape the world around him. They came from a part of him that was otherwise locked away in his subconscious. He was always a little hesitant in using them, because that part always nudged a little closer when he used the power it offered. He was sure that this part of him had horizontal eyelids and a 15-ton physique.

He sang a song with a drastically sad tone. The other members of the Hive five started crying uncontrollably. Everyone of them heard the song differently but all of them were crying for something they lost at some point in their life. Gizmo was crying for a teddy bear he lost a while ago. He had tried to look for it with a robot he built just for that purpose, but the robot ended up being crushed by Mammoth sitting on it. Seemore might have been able to find the teddy bear in a minute, but Gizmo was not going to tell anyone that he still had one. Seemore was crying just for the sakes of it and from the pain that he had lost Jinx to Du'grel. Mammoth was crying because he wanted pie and they didn't have any. Kid Wicked was crying for a reason that no one else than he knew. It is safe to presume that it had something to do with the fact that he didn't talk much. Billy Numerous was just wailing with conviction because their Gamestation happened to break down just then.

If there would have been an empath in the house, he or she would have noticed that their emotions were only drained of their bodies and that they all flowed through the air and followed a certain frequency of sound, vibration of the molecules in the air. A song had power that no one knew about. It was a net that collected power and feelings around it. At least Du'grels songs had this kind of effect. He thought that it was just a loophole that the side of him that was usually locked away used to get out. He kept on singing a song without words. It was only a dancing sound, there was no need for words. It was basically a telepathic leech turned into a vibration of molecules. The power he had collected flowed into the already cramped space. It flowed as a golden mist of sorts that slowly sunk in to his skin and made him glow. He kept on forwarding the power to Jinx to keep her alive while he tried to figure out how to stop the bleeding. Huomenna ne kuitenkii vittuilee mulle. The power made Jinx's metabolic system go into overdrive and produce more blood. This put some colour back on her cheeks and made her warmer, but the blood was still seeping out of her and her system was strained even further. He wasn't a healer, he didn't know what he was, but he still had no idea how to heal something like this.

Wait… Didn't I do it before? I cured Robin. How did I do that? I… Used his spirit… Made him be how he saw himself… Will it work here? Now?

He had a part in him that knew exactly how to cure her, but that part was also terrified of closed spaces and water, so a shower booth was just a place where it just could not function. It was just trying to blow up the walls around it and vaporise the water. Du'grel had no pull on this part of him when it was so hysterical. He didn't want to break any of Jinx's stuff, but he thought that she valued her life more than any material possessions. He broke down some water into hydrogen and concentrated it on the shower door. Then he made a spark.

The hydrogen exploded and the shower door flew out into the bathroom. It was made out of armour-enforced glass, because Jinx had the tendency to do stuff in the shower that made her lose control of her powers, so it didn't brake into shards. It just melted out of shape and broke right through several walls. The unused power floating around turned into kinetic energy and gave it more momentum. Actually that was Du'grels power. He could turn energy, any kind of energy, into a base power that he could then again turn into any kind of energy he liked and use it. He could also just store it in his own being, his flame you could call it. Because every metahuman's power was based on controlling some kind of energy, he was the ideal hero-killer. A hitman.

He dragged Jinx out of the shower and into the bedroom. As he felt how the side of him that had the knowledge that was needed to heal Jinx started to calm down when there was a slightly bigger room and there was no water, he let it out to use the power he had gathered. It was still flowing about, because it wasn't used or soaked in and it started to change back into any kind of possible energy. It heated up the room, short-circuited the electronics and fucked up the small mammals in a 5 mile radius. Trout's appeared from thin air and hot pink frogs materialized into coffee cups all over Jump City. And on top of all that Doctor Light overheated just when he was about to rob a bank. He was thrown in jail without the Titans help.

Du'grel himself was cast out from his own body for now. The side of him that was in control didn't have a name, but lets call him Steve. Steve was currently breaking down Jinx's body and putting it back together from the imprint in her DNA. Her memories and emotions were preserved by her own power. It was an impressive light show, but describing a moment that only lasted for a blink of an eye would be hard and downright impossible.

When Steve was done with her he was perfectly still and looked out into the distance for several minutes. The trouts faded in and out of existence around him as he soaked in the surplus power in the room. Steve felt how the runes around Du'grels body started to burn him and he raised his hands above his head. A ball of fire formed between his extended arms and shot up through the ceiling. Steve watched when the shiny orb of light penetrated though into the world. He wanted to see the sky. He wanted to know that there was a way out and that he was not trapped. He saw the blue sky through the hole. He made a "guu-guu" sound that expressed joy and reached his hands towards the sky. He was forced back to the depths he came from by the brightly shining symbols across Du'grels body.

Du'grel blinked and saw the destruction around him. He remembered blowing up the shower, but he had no recollection of the hole in the roof. He had blacked out. At least Jinx was back to health. She didn't have a scratch on her. That was weird. She didn't have any of her old scars either. There had been one on her lower back. It looked stretched so Du'grel assumed that it had happened to her while she was young. He didn't know much about these things, but he assumed that a human healing process was the same as his. _Did I rebuild her?_ He wondered and drove his hand through her hair. It was dry even though she had been soaked a minute ago. _Guess so… _He raised her up and set her down on the bed. She had been tired before she went to the shower, so now she must be ready to sleep for a week. He wondered if he should put the old scars back on her. Will she miss them? Probably not, but she will notice them being gone. Will she be angry, because he changed her? Even in this way? Probably, but he liked it when Jinx was angry, sad or happy because of him. He had noticed that she was the one person that was not affected by his unintentional emotional manipulation. At least he knew that she was really mad at her and not just feeling what he wanted her to feel. That was one of the reasons he had let her go back when he was a hero.

"I'm not a hero… Guess I'll have get to it then." He looked up through the hole in the roof. He saw the sky and when he squinted his eyes and adjusted them to see through the spectre of light that made up the blue sky, he saw the Watchtower. Wasn't that what they were calling it? What were they called again?

Oh, yes. Da Justice League. (Chuckle) _Robins mentor is part of them. Maybe I should do something with that information. Actually I don't have anything personal on the guy, but I just hate his sense of style… I do not think like that! I have no grounds on killing Batman and that's it. I only need high-energy targets. Generators...I see quite a few up there…_

Du'grel fixed the bathroom by reversing time… Sort of… He ran the kinetic energy backwards so that he wouldn't cause a paradox. He had to wonder… How was he able to stop time back then to mess with Starfire? Steve didn't possess him, or was Steve still a part of him back then? Was he breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces? Who was Steve? His innocence, or maybe his fear? _Why do I call him Steve?_ _Why not call him Steve? Who cares what's he called? He's just a part of me anyways. "Steve" is a lot more convenient than "The part of Du'grel that has the power to do stuff with energy he doesn't". Stupid._

When Du'grel had fixed up Jinx's bathroom as best he could (He couldn't figure out how to get water in the shower and didn't even want to.) He teleported himself far up into the sky. He wanted to see space around him. He wanted to see that he was free. Free of what; He did not know, but there was some part of him that was relieved to be in the vast outdoors. So, he was afraid of showers and closed spaces. What had happened to him for him to be so afraid?

He looked up and saw the lights of the Watchtower. He had to do this. If they hated him, felt that he was only a low-life; they would not hesitate to attack him head-on. That suited him just fine. He knew that they had all kinds of security sensors that could detect his energy signature. He figured as much, but now he knew exactly what kind of energies they could detect and what were still invisible to anyone except Superman and some other guys up there. He had read Robin's mind and ransacked the Titans mainframe for that information. He could not say that this had been his only reason in joining the Teen Titans. He had tried to become friends with Raven to be all subtle about it. He was forced to try that aproach first, even though he knew it was not going to work. He would have liked it to work, but he knew better.

They had sensors for almost any kind of energies and a sudden lack of them, but for some reason they couldn't detect the base energy that he used, his flame. It was white noise to their sensors, it looked like every single energy form combined into an highly-concentrated plasma and the computers registered it as a glitch and faded him out. Well, that was the case actually. He didn't know for sure, but it made sense. He still needed a diversion, so that the monitor wouldn't notice a solemn blind spot moving on the sensors. _I could mess up that particle beam they have… They disconnected it, but I'm sure I could remotely feed energy in to it and shoot it somewhere in the pacific. I could just make it sparkle a bit and make them panic that it's going to shoot something. It would also be as easy to just hurl a meteor at them… Would they get suspicious? Let's see. I can't spare that much energy._

Du'grel had reflexively holstered himself in a bubble almost identical to the one Green Lantern used. Only now he started to wonder how he could breath in space. He didn't notice anything different, he did occasionally glow for no apparent reason. He did what he usually did in these situations; He shrugged and just accepted it. Questions could wait. Now he had to find an asteroid to throw at them. He flew around for a while and then just thought that he could make one. There was space junk floating around and if he was careful not to touch any active satellites no one would know. Justice League might dig it up later, but that would have to be dealt with then.

He started by shimmering to the dark side of the moon, so that their sensors wouldn't detect him. He was about to use the satellites and melt them into an asteroid to throw at the Watchtower. There was enough wreckage circling the moon to make a fake asteroid, so he could just pick off what he needed. He simply grabbed the satellite he needed and released an excessive amount of infrared radiation to melt it into an unidentifiable mass. He repeated the process a dozen times over to get enough mass that it would actually harm the Watchtower if it hit it. Okay… He didn't think this one through._How the hell am I going to get that to even flying at the Watchtower? I would have to be Superman to get that moving… Why is the back of my head so itchy? _

He moved around the rock to try and figure out how the hell was he going to get this flying at the Watchtower. Du'grel was still wondering why was the back of his head so itchy and that only aggravated him more. He should have taken this to account, but he didn't think that far ahead. He was the improvising type.

A mystical trout materialized inside his ear and that caused him to send the asteroid hurling towards the moon with an unintentional burst of kinetic energy. In other words; He drove the trout out of his inner ear with a huge explosion. The asteroid hit and the moon made a GONG sound that lingered and made your ears itch. The moon started to slowly drift towards the Watchtower.

"Oo-kay… That will do… I got to find out what is it with these trouts. This is getting ridiculous…" Du'grel floated calmly behind the moon as it neared its intended target. He couldn't resist the urge to peek and see how more lights light up on the kinda torch shaped space station. He saw how about half a dozen of shuttles launched off to meet the massive hunk of rock that had just been orbiting earth a minute ago. Du'grel closed his eyes and concentrated on the energies flowing from the shuttles.

_Now lets see… Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, The Martian and… I don't know the rest, but they are not important. I'll have to watch out for Superman, since he could spot me and also the martian, since I hear that he's a telepath. How can I get past them or should I try and hitch a ride? No, The martian could sense me. I'll have to distract them even further…Is there any subtle way to do this? If there is; I don't know about it._

Because of the nature of his powers Du'grel could work from afar in the cold of space where drastic temperature changes were common and the use of his powers would be easy. He opened his eyes wide open and concentrated his gaze on one of the shuttles. They were flying in formation, so an engine malfunction would be quite devastating. The shuttles had two jet thrusters on either side and Du'grel concentrated on the left side engine of the shuttle where the martian was. The engine died and because the right engine was still on full speed it caused for it to steer into the shuttle flying next to it. This shuttle had Superman in it, so this way he could get both of them occupied enough to get past them. He didn't stick around to see if the pilots could avoid a crash. He simply wrapped the fabric of reality around him and shimmered right into the Watchtower. He had to do this blindly since he did not know anything about the Watchtowers architecture.

He found himself in the cafeteria of the instalment. It was almost empty because of the moons exiting behaviour. Everyone was probably gawking at it from one of the view windows. There was only one person still eating. _How could someone so fast be the last one to finish a meal?_

It was Flash. He didn't even stop eating when he saw Du'grel appear from thin air. Du'grel had his hood up and Flash probably thought that he was someone else. Someone he knew, he seemed to know everyone. He was a friendly guy.

Such a shame…

"Hi! Shouldn't you be gawking at the moon? Someone just threw it at us." Flash could talk normally while eating, but he never actually bothered on doing it. Du'grel had to wonder why. Du'grel saw no out from this and sat down across Flash. "I've never been the romantic type. How could someone throw a moon in any case?" He grabbed an apple from a pile that Flash hadn't chewed down yet. He saw no reason in hiding his powers here and sheathed a single claw in his right hand and started peeling the apple. He was somehow against eating anything red that didn't bleed.

"I'm actually surprised that no one had tried it before. They've tried everything else by now." Flash was starting to wonder if this guy was supposed to be here. He did come out of nowhere. "I didn't catch your name." He was nearly done with his meal and was now eating a banana. Du'grel looked up and let his eyes flare up. They had the strange effect of hiding his face rather than lighting it. Guess they just took your attention away from them. He saw how Flash's eyes were locked with his. "Du'grel Desham. No added names included. I'm not into them that much." Du'grel started to spread his "Chill" around them to keep him from zipping away. He slowly started to make a circle around the table. He resynchronised it to especially drain movement, kinetic energy. When Flash hit it, it would be like hitting a cushioned brick wall.

"When did you join our merry ranks? I've never seen you around before." Flash was starting to feel somehow traped under his gaze. He realized that he was alone with a stranger that he did not know and that had some freaky looking nails. "Actually, I didn't join in at any point. I'm a little too young for your ranks." Du'grel was part reptilian and saw nothing wrong in swallowing an apple whole. He could dislocate his jaw, so this was possible. Flash only heard a soft klick and saw how Du'grel threw the apple in his mouth and didn't stop to chew. Sweat ran down to his jaw. Why can't I move? Is he hypnotizing me?

"Young? What do you mean by that?" He had to think of a way out of this. Du'grel watched him intently for a second and then his hood fell to his neck and showed how young he was. He had changed his appearence a little just to freak Flash out. He had chaned his eyes to be bigger and his face a lot narrower and pushed slightly outwards. He looked like a lizard. Of course he had two rows of needle-like fangs to complete the illusion. He wanted to see if he could stop Flash with his own powers.

Flash freaked out and jumped of the chair he had been a split second ago. Du'grels speed-trap almost worked. Flash felt like he had ran through a cushioned brick wall. He stumbled and eventually tripped on another table and fell hard on the floor. The contact with Du'grels speed-trap had knocked the breath out of him and caused him to stumble and fall. "Wow! I underestimated you. Well, you're just gonna learn from your mistakes..." Du'grel got up from his seat and focused his gaze on Flash. Flash felt like ice was dripping down every pour on his skin and he felt how it settled on his bones. He couldn't move. You can't imagine how helpless that makes you feel if your only advantage is your speed. His teeth rattled to prove that the cold was as real as itcould get. Darkness was creeping up on the corners of his eyes. He was being frozen alive. Holy mother of god... It hurts! Death hurts!

" I am sorry that I have to do this, but I need your energy. I hope that there would be another way. I do not want to do this." Du'grel forced Flash to look him in the eyes by holding on to his jaw. He took out a very sharp looking dagger with his free hand. His eyes flared again and Flash became perfectly still while he stared into those eyes. He didn't feel it when the blade sunk in. He only felt how something warm ran onto his neck and how he had to gough something out of his throat. The last thing he tasted was the bitter taste of copper.

And the last thing he saw were Du'grels eyes. He felt how he sunk into those eyes, how he was drained...


	7. Chapter 7

**Someone flame me already!**

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**Chapte****r 7**

He watched how Flash gurgled on the floor and eventually stopped moving entirely. He hoped he would have felt something. He felt nothing, absolutely nothing, for him and it made his appearance change into something foreign from cold and rational displeasure. The knowledge of the emotions that should have been raging inside him was weighting down on his psyche and made his thoughts erratic and unpredictable. The little control he had over the turmoil of energy inside him was crumbling and every high-powered machinery on the Tower light up from the rogue energy crackling in the air.

He fell to his knees and his eyes turned dark, they shut down, and he shut down. _"Ghhrraagh…"_Raven had called him an emotional parasite and he was beginning to wonder if she was right. She might not have said it, but he knew exactly what she thought and felt. She thought and believed that he was an unknown breed of a dragon. He was not so sure about that. He had to take other things into account. What did drive him on? Was it a simple base instinct to breed and spread his genome? That would explain his interest with Jinx. He was beginning to think that he had turned into a dragon just to impress her; it did give him the results he wished. It would also explain why his reproductive organs were so…_pronounced_. Did he manipulate Jinx just for her to have sex with him? She was hopelessly into unicorns, dragons, knights and all that stuff. She didn't show it much, but still he knew, he always knew. He knew this from the first time he came into contact with her. He knew these things about every one around him with an energy pattern distinct enough for him to read. So he knew this and then acted on it. Secluded her, made her smudge just the right rune and then when the fire was unleashed, he transformed into a thing that looked and acted like a dragon. Only time he had felt something was while he was around other people. Did he really leech on other people's emotions to feel more human, to justify his existence? Was he really the monster that he was forced to be?

He stumbled up and his eyes flared up again. They really did flare: white flames shot out of his eyes and burned two circular holes in the ceiling. He got back up and kicked Flash's body in a fit of rage, or he just did what he would do in a fit of rage, he didn't know anymore. He wanted to be able to feel! He wanted to know that he was, believing was not enough! He threw random bursts of energy around and let them rip the walls apart and then made the pieces fly around and destroy every other thing in the cafeteria.

"I am human! I am just as human as every one on this freaking space station! I am just as human as the freaks down there!" His face turned even more inhuman and his form became engulfed in white flames. The storm of energy intensified and Flash's body was torn into a thousand pieces that splattered around the remaining walls and some pieces stayed glued to the ceiling and were permanently scorched into the ceiling when flames engulfed the room and Du'grel let out a wail of pure desperation, the sound was more like a wailing wind than anything that a human could produce. The sound was so full of loneliness and madness that it made shills run up and down the backs of every one on the station. Du'grel flew through their minds without knowing it and saw the difference of their minds and his own. His mind was so _cold_! It was devastating to his mind and everyone on the Watchtower shared his horror and despair for only a split second, but it was enough to bring most of them to their knees.

"No! Nonononono!" His mind was breaking down and the flames started burning away his flesh. He was losing control and he couldn't care less. Damn them, damn them all! Let them burn, let them feel what my life was and still is! Make them feel the - "Pain…" His eyes suddenly dimmed and his body fell to its knees and the flames burned him away in a matter of seconds. He did not breath any dramatic last words; he was just burned away in a matter of seconds.

Actually, he didn't die. The flame kept on raging on and finally activated the automatic sprinkler system. His flame was different, it didn't radiate heat; it was hot enough to melt just about anything, but only on direct contact and the fire didn't reach the sprinklers until just now. The fire danced around hypnotically and completely ignored the water raining down on it and the heroes attempts to put it out. It pulsated like a living thing and made a sound that was like a whooshing heartbeat. Not even nearly resembling any sound that a human body could produce. You could connect the sound to hydraulic machinery. It was still wailing miserably and tried to tear apart every hero that tried to put it out.

Some base instinct was still alive in the complex gathering of energies that had once been Du'grel, and in some way, still was. It reacted very violently when Jhan tried to find out what kind of mind controlled the conscious flame that was now ravaging the Watchtower. The martian was sensing a unclear outline of a mind in the flame and tried to go deeper when it suddenly shot back.

Down in the cafeteria the flame roared higher than ever and was sucking Stargirl in its depths when it suddenly dissipated into thin air. It didn't die out, it just disappeared in an blink of an eye.

"What happened? Where -" She couldn't finish her sentence because the stench of scorched flesh hit her. The flame had also covered the bits and pieces that were what was left of Flash. No one had known of them until now. She covered her mouth and tried to force down the vomit. The stench intensified and she thought that she heard laughter. She shot up (She didn't remember getting down on her knees) and looked around wildly. At least she didn't feel like vomiting anymore.

"You disgusting girl! Do you have no respect for the dead? You're crawlin' on Flash's earthly remains!" The laughter echoed inside her head and made her vomit violently on the floor. She heard how the voice mocked her and laughed at her. "You like that, the smell, don't you, bitch! Fine, have a taste then." A sudden weight pressed her down and her face was forced against the floor. Her face was being rubbed in to her own vomit and the sticky remains of Flash. She cried uncontrollably and vomited again before passing from pure terror.

Her friends, her allies, couldn't do anything because of a force-field in the doorway of the cafeteria. They heard the voice that scolded her, and tried to hit the air all around her to hurt the thing that was holding her down. Supergirl was shooting lasers from her eyes all around the room, but she only ripped the room apart even more. The wicked power that had remained in the room after the flame had faded was starting to fade away, but it did not leave before shoving its power. A rather large piece of scorched Flash shot out from the wall and splattered on Supergirl's chest, right on the big "S" and covered it with scorching decaying flesh. "Rest in peaces…" The voice was fading away and

"Get it off! Get it off! Please, get it off!" Tears ran down her face and she was ripping her shirt apart and soon her whole chest was exposed, but no one thought anything even closely sexual when she dropped down on the floor on a feudal position and cried while hugging herself. Someone put their cape to cover her and carried her away. No one wanted to smell and see what the fire had done.

When the enemy was gone the heroes started to tend for the injured (The fire had given everyone who approached it severe burns, but no one had actually died while fighting it) and isolate the scene of the crime. Stargirl was wheeled out on and followed closely by her father, she was completely limp and seemed lifeless. If the damage was in her body or her brain; it definitely was fixable, but if it was in her mind, if she had broke down mentally; there was very little they could do for her. Jauhn was one of the few that could help her through whatever nightmare she was in.

Where am I? It's cold. Smells like winter, snow and ice. 

_Help me!_

_So cold…_

"Jauhn! Jauhn, what's wrong?" Hawkgirl has never been accused of being especially, patient, but now she was sure that something was wrong. He had been probing the fire that was raging in the cafeteria for signs of some kind of primitive intelligence when he suddenly went limp and crashed to the floor. She was the first to reach him and she shook him like a rag doll. She knew that this didn't help if he was somewhere else than his own body, but it made her feel better. Like she was doing something.

The whole situation was chaotic. First the moon started spiralling towards the Watchtower and they launched out to do something about it. Superman just said that they should gather every flying super-powered hero available and push it back on its natural orbit. The precise orbit would have to be calculated later, but now they just had to get it back to orbiting earth.

They did that. Then the ships crashed into each other and they had to get back home with one ship and Green Lantern carrying the ones that were on the ships that crashed into each other. When they finally got back on to the station the cafeteria was engulfed in conscious flames and Flash was torn into thousands of pieces on the walls. It was hard to believe, but when he was not zipping around and throwing around stupid jokes it was easier to believe. Still… no one _wanted_ to believe it.

"The fire went out, but it hospitalised Stargirl and Superirl." Superman said while floating into the room. There were dark shadows under his eyes and he looked like he could fall down from exhaustion. A lot had happened in the last thirty minutes.

"How? They didn't walk in it, did they?" Jauhn asked while getting up shakily, supporting himself on the table. Something had really knocked the wind out of him.

"What did you find out?" Superman asked without answering the question. Jauhn hesitated and considered if he should press on and find out what he was hiding. He sensed something in the back of his mind when he said that. Something foreign… _He is an alien as well though, so it's not that alarming. There are whole galaxies between us. _He decided against it.

"The fire indeed is a sentient being, violent, ancient, and driven on only by hate and a need to survive. It is capable of unspoken cruelty and comes from a place even more foreign than I. At least this is what I was able to gather before it struck back and disappeared."

"That's all nice and all, but how do we fight it?" Superman grimaced and his knees buckled under him. He would have fallen face first to the floor if Wonder Woman had not been there to catch him. "Are you feeling alright." Superman coughed up a trout and then said: "What do you think, hot stuff? Again, how do we fight it, Jauhn?" His hair started to turn into a lighter shade of grey and his muscles disappeared right in front of their eyes. His thights were getting baggy. He started coughing uncontrollably, spraying blood all over the floor and Wonder Woman. She dropped Superman and frantically wiped the blood out from her eyes. Superman stumbled and then fell down face first on the floor.

"_Superman was surprisingly easy. I don't think that he even noticed that I was inside him. Jauhn, you were right, I do have intelligence, but I don't know what was that stuff about me being ancient… I would like to see what you dug up. I need to."_

The fire jumped out of Superman's drained body and engulfed Jauhn. He dematerialised just before the flame made contact and didn't get burned alive. "_Forgot about that, but it's not going to help you. I can melt through anything you phase through. I only want the things you uncovered about my past! I have no need for your power!"_

Jauhn and the fire that was and is Du'grel did not fight in the traditional sense of the word, Jauhn tried to dodge out of the raging fire. What ever he went through, the fire melted and stayed on his skin. The fire kept his whole form engulfed in itself and gave him no way out. He was going to have to materialise again soon. _"Just give it to me and no one -"_

Shayera's mace sliced through the fire and caused it to turn crimson red on contact _"Shriaakrgh!"_The fire formed back into a shape that had vague resemblance to a man, the creature still consisted of white fire, but it seemed to be bound by gravity again. "_What was that, fallen?" _The creature looked up, its posture emanated hate and threat. The air also smelled like snow and ice. Jauhn materialised behind Shayera, breathing heavily.

"You okay, Jauhn?"

"I was counting on that… Thank you." Jauhn said and then went over to check on Superman. Du'grel stepped towards Jauhn, but Shayera sliced him with her mace again. His form exploded again into crimson flames and then gathered again a few feet away from Shayera. She grinned sadistically. "That really hurts you, doesn't it?"

Du'grel just looked around, like he was looking for a way out. Then he finally set his gaze on Shayera. _"Do you know the location of Batman? I was looking forward to meeting him. He did not take part in the attempt to stop me and this troubles me deeply and truly. I took him as the persistent type…" _

Shayera was a little thrown off by that. Why would he be worried about where Batman was at a time like this? What kind of mind would think about Batman when she was threatening him? Was he retarded or -

Shayera's mace was almost thrown out of her hands when the fire's whole mass slammed into her body, carefully avoiding the mace and direct contact with her. Didn't it know it was the mace? It probably thought that it was her. It had not bothered to turn back into the wildfire and Shayera only got some burns on her wrists, where it was holding her hands back. Jauhn could fix those in a heartbeat. It hissed and growled at the same time and spat on her face. It burned her skin and scorched her clothes. It acted like an animal with rabies. It definitely was crazy, but it was not as strong as you would think. Its hold was easy enough to break and she drove her mace straight through the inhuman being. It screeched again and exploded into crimson flames. Shayera was caught in the midst of the flames and she could not see anything but red and a fluttering image of the outside world. The fire did not burn; they were actually cold as ice. She also heard something. Whispered words that she could not understand, but that were said over and over again, like a prayer or a spell. She could only understand one word: "Raven" She whispered the word under her breath and the words intensified as the fire fluttered and started relapsing back in to its humanoid form. The fire started to burn her and it was also getting hard to breath.

Shayera flew up and prepared to strike down on the thing's next inhumane incarnation. She stopped before her mace was even raised. There was a well-built teenager there where the deep red flames had raged just a second ago. He had white hair and very unusual eyes… And he was completely naked. He looked confused and was visibly shaking. The shaking intensified and the kid lost his balance. He fell down on the floor and curled up in a feudal position. He took in huge shaking gulps of air and whimpered between breaths and trembled on the floor. He was clearly in terrible pain. Shayera dropped her mace cautiously, you never knew if it was a trick, but she could not make herself believe that anymore.

Du'grel Desham was back, restored from madness through trials of fire. He had never been in so much pain and could not stop the whimpers escaping from his mouth. It was like his body had frozen solid and was now shattering into tiny bits. Every little movement was like the cells in his body were cracked apart into sharp splinters. His muscles shuddered from the cold and made his existence into a constant roller coaster of pain. He knew that he had died and was now reincarnated somehow, but still he wanted to die if this was the cost of life. The pain was too much to bear.

His mind was much clearer now; he remembered his purpose, his mission. "Raven…" He whispered too silently for anyone to hear it. The pain started to fade slowly. The name slid out of the depths of his subconscious and floated through his conscious mind, tainting everything with it: Protect Raven, Save Raven, Love Raven, Serve Raven, Obey Raven, Never hurt Raven, Follow Raven, Never Leave Raven. He had been given his life back, but he had also been given this purpose. Whoever had given his life back to him was a cruel person. He was bound to Raven in more than one way. He was bound to serve her and stay near her; it was hard for him to keep his mind together if he was on orbit. Once he arrived on this planet, he was bound to stay. He was also blood bound; His life was entwined with hers, but her life was not entwined with his. If Raven died; He died. If he died; Raven lived on. He served the woman he hated most in the world. It was better when he didn't remember this, he could just follow his instincts and not ask that many questions.

Still, he did not know who he was. The martian seemed to know and it seemed that he had not been able to force it out of him (His time as the fire was all blurry in his mind). He was too weak to fight them, so there was actually no choice.

"I… I give up! Lock me up or shoot me down to earth, do what ever you do up here, but I would like to have some pants _now_." He was still breathing heavily and his body hurt all around, but now it was not as mind-numbingly painful as it was during the first minutes. He looked up to a sea of legs. The heroes had surrounded him while he was shaking on the floor. They were ready to pounce on him if he tried anything. He noticed that he was looking up into Batman's eyes. "Hello, Bruce, I was wondering where you were. Your weakness is an advantage. I could not track you as well as those other guys. I am ready to answer any questions you might have."

Batman looked at him silently for a moment. He tried to make him squirm under his eyes, but it didn't seem to work at all, it had always worked before, especially on his age group. Actually Batman was getting nervous under that relentless gaze of those weird glowing eyes. The kid didn't blink at all and he knew his name somehow. He hated telepaths, he had very little defences against them.

"Oh, don't worry; I got your name from _their_minds, not yours. I keep hearing this annoying tune from yours. Now, could I get something to cover myself with? I can't make anything for a while myself."

Batman made a commanding gesture and someone threw a blanket at his head from the crowd and he immediately wrapped it around himself and got up. This happened in a fraction of a second, Batman noticed the speed and was sure about one thing: This kid had killed Flash. He had seen it on the surveillance tapes just a minute ago, but this proved it without question. This kid was some kind of power absorber, either by magical rituals or by nature. It would be pointless to fight someone with Flash's speed and with an ability to turn into living fire. He couldn't freeze him because he was too fast for that. Du'grel shivered and shook his head to clear it.

"Now I understand why he was so chatty. This feels like being extremely high!" He looked at the angry faces around him. He shrugged and zipped behind Batman. "Are we going or not? You are going to interrogate me, or something?" A glowing green fist collided with his face and he fell down. He didn't get up, but turned his head to stare at Green Lantern.

"You done yet? Or would you like to do something else you will regret." His voice was a low growling hiss. Batman saw how the ground beneath Du'grel frosted. Guess freezing him wouldn't have worked anyways.

"You killed Flash!" Green Lantern made a green sword and held it on Dugrel's throat. Du'grel smiled and his eyes flashed a little brighter than usual as he said: "Yes, I did. Would you like to join him?" Green Lanterns ring fluttered and the green sword dissipated like smoke. He tried to use the ring again, but it was no use. "Here I thought that the ring was just a way for you to use your own power. Boy, how wrong I was! It was the ring that had the power; you were the one using it… Interesting…" He closed his eyes and seemed to fall asleep. Everyone looked around, unsure on what to do. This kid had apparently killed Flash, immobilised Superman and drained Green Lantern's ring. After all this, what did he do? He fell asleep. Sure, he had to be tired after all that, but it just seemed so inappropriate.

"Let's kill him. He has to pay for his crimes." Wonder Woman said while kicking his sleeping form. His body slammed into the wall and then slid down slowly to the floor. No one didn't bother or didn't dare to stop her. Anyways, now they had to figure out what to do next. Everyone started talking at the same time.

No one stopped to think about the reason why they had not said a word just a minute ago, when Du'grel was still awake. Every one was too busy in thinking of ways to imprison and punish him for his crimes. They all wondered what kind of Powers did he have beyond the ones he stole from Flash. They knew that he could turn into conscious flames: that's one. He

Had Flash's speed; that's two. He could stop Flash long enough to kill him and Batman had noticed how the ground froze under him when he got agitated, while he drained Green Lanterns ring; So he could drain energy or control it. Superheroes that had scientific experience started to make a cell that could contain him based on these assumptions. Batman took it upon himself to notify Flash's family. Superman was rushed to the infirmary.

And what about Du'grel? He knew nothing about his own physiology and thus did not know how his powers worked. His body had some interesting traits, especially in the way his powers worked. His powers were bound into his ability to see; yet that was not bound to his body, but his body was bound to his powers. The fire was his power and his power created his body and he saw even without a body. So why did he have a body at all then. He didn't know and there was no one alive that knew that. He turned into cold fire when he lost control of his emotions and he burned away everything it touched. Breaking it down to pieces and taking what it needed and wanted.

The fire was his power and it adapted to every new situation incredibly fast. That was how he could absorb meta-human powers. The fire especially adapted to new kinds of energy presented to it and if exposed to enough of the same kind energy, it started producing it within itself. And most of meta-human powers were based on producing and controlling energy…

So why did Du'grel shut down? Like everything in the universe, even his powers had limitations. Too many different kinds energy signatures surrounded him and his instinctual drive to adjust drove him out of his mind. At least that's what he thought and he knew there were some major flaws in his theory, but he didn't have another way to explain it. He only knew of this instinct and he had almost pieced together the fire's goals. He felt like there were a dozen other people inside him, all of them fighting for control.

He pieced these things together only later. Now he slumbered in this world.

And went to another one.

**…**

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**AN: I am not sure on where to send him and if you have any suggestions please tell me. I'll shed some light on Du'grel's past on the next chapter so you have time to send me a message or submit a review or flame me and then go and slit your wrists in a bathtub filled with hot water**

** Oh, how red the water will be! Go, my children, do it and then sue me for telling you to do so! (Seriously speaking; Don't listen to me.)**

**Crazy laughter **


	8. Chapter 8

**I know this is a little short, but it is just to shed some light on the past of the cryptic Du'**. **This fragment of his past doesn´t even really tell who he is, but it does explain why he is so obsessed with Raven. And on another note: Could you please tell me what gategory this story should go, because I have no idea. General/Romance really doesn't seem like it really describes this story.  
**

**_Post Scriptum:_ Come on! Why don´t you flame me already? I need you to flame me! Just humor me and do it!**

**Crazy Laughter **

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**Chapter 8**

She was sleeping and she was dreaming about some place that was very cold, cold and dark. Somehow she knew without doubt that she was dreaming. She saw nothing but complete darkness. No stars, so she was probably underground. She just felt the cold in her bones and heard a constant wailing. Was it the wind? That meant that there would be a way and it gave her hope.

She tried to move but she could not move her body at all. Fear filled her mind. Was she paralyzed? Was this how it felt? She could not know, but they didn't seem so much in pain on TV. What was this? Was she dreaming? Did Du'grel do something to her again? She saw a wall of ice. She had opened her eyes, but she still had had no control over it. She could not even blink on her own. She was looking out of someone else's eyes.

Was this a vision, a premonition of some kind? Now she wasn´t only afraid, she was a little excited; she had never had a vision before. She felt how the foreign body moved its head and got up to its hands and knees. There was a fluttering bright light lighting the tunnel that was dug into ice. The unknown person turned to look back the tunnel that stretched out into the darkness. She thought that she saw a tiny pinprick of light that was either the tunnels entrance or another light source in the distance.

The tunnel was barely large enough to walk without crawling. The body that's guest she was had to crouch her back and bend her knees. The body in question was aching all around and her back and legs were especially aching terribly. Why was this woman in this dark and lonely place? What was that light in the end of the tunnel, that flickering but still never fading light? Was it the infamous light where you should go if you wanted to go to heaven? Weren't you supposed to float in there peacefully or something? You were not supposed to crawl towards it through an icy tunnel. Besides, the tunnel went downwards, so wasn´t she going the wrong way?

The Jane Doe started to slowly proceed towards the flickering light, the floor of the tunnel was slippery and she slipped and fell on her hands and knees all the time. She had old bruises on her knees and elbows and her robe was stained with blood and ripped and torn all over. The robe might have been white sometime, but now it was a stained shade of Gray where it was not red from blood.

Sometimes the tunnel would turn into a slippery slope and cause her to tumble down an almost vertical wall of jagged ice. Jinx would just want to stay there and tend to her broken ribs, but the person who had control of the body she was in just got up an kept on going down the tunnel. The light was blinding now. Jinx tried to curse and shout at the crazy bitch that was making her endure punishment like this. It was no use, she seemed to be in a memory; everything had happened already and she could do nothing but watch. How can someone still be walking after all that? What could drive someone to this?

"_My daughter… I had to protect her…" _What the hell was that? Did I just hear her thoughts or did she say that out loud? Did she answer me? _HEY, BITCH! I WOULD LIKE TO GET OUT NOW!_

Complete and utter silence.

Okay, she must have said it out loud. She was talking to herself... That crazy bitch…

"_Watch your language… young lady…" _Okay… The question really is… Who am I talking to exactly? It wasn't the woman whose body she was in, she didn't act like she was hearing voices. But the voice I heard was still female and if this was indeed Du'grel's doing, wouldn't it be Du'grel talking to her?

The light was right up ahead now and it was bright enough make her eyes water. The woman dropped down into a space that was large enough to stand in. She straightened her back and sighed in relief. Then she stated talking in a low and soothing voice. As if talking to a child.

"It's me. Could you turn yourself a little less brighter, you don't have to impress me." The light turned considerably less brighter, now the small cave looked like it was bathed in white sunlight. It was still painfully bright, but you would be able to function with a pair of sunglasses and by squinting your eyes. She pulled out a pair of sunglasses and put them on. She had obviously been here before.

Jinx started to see things more clearly. The cave was just large enough to stand in and there was a wall of light right in front of her. She couldn't see if anything else was in the cave since the mystery woman didn't move her eyes from the origins of the light. Jinx thought that she saw two spots of light that were a little brighter than the rest of the lighted ice. A shiver ran down her spine and she felt like something was looking right into the deepest part of her soul. The light emanated behind a thin layer of ice and it seemed like it was frozen inside the ice. Frozen fire? That is impossible. Still the light seemed to come from an extremely bright flame inside the ice. The flickering was caused by a pulsing inside the wall of ice. The fire seemed to retreat into itself every three seconds and then imploded again to hit the wall of ice.

"**I just wanted to see you safely here, that's all." **Jinx noticed a slight pause after the words "see you". The woman had seemingly been here before and they knew each other. Who or what ever this thing in the ice was, the voice sounded vaguely familiar. Jinx knew that she had heard it somewhere. She just couldn´t place it. The woman walked closer to it and stood right in front of the light and she noticed that the woman's movements were slow and cautious, like she didn't want to frighten the thing that was trapped inside the ice.

"You can talk much more fluidly now. Have you been practicing by yourself?" She ran her hand on the ice soothingly and the constant wail that had made her almost impossible to hear anything died down slowly. From afar it sounded like the wailing wind, but up close it was like a cry of pain stretched into a constant wail. It made your insides freeze over and your " Haven't I told you that you should not do that anymore? You don't want to frighten me away do you?" The wail stopped in a fraction of a second and the fire was like a flickering candle now. Was it that desperate for this woman's company?

"**I do not know why I do it… It just seems like I have been doing it for such a long time. Why can't I remember it? Why can I not remember anything before you?" **The light started to change shape and after a few seconds of it twisting and pulsating there was someone staring back at her from the ice.**"Who is she? I see her in you as you come here. Every time." **The voice sounded curious and innocent, like a child. The body Jinx was in tensed up entirely and gasped, taking a step back. Jinx recognized the face in the ice. The gem on the forehead was a dead giveaway. It was Raven as a child, and she was smiling. She looked surprisingly cute as a child. Jinx had always assumed that she had been an ugly duckling as a child and that was why she was so withdrawn. She had great big eyes and her hair was exactly the same as it was now. _Figures..._

"Can you see into my mind? How long have you been able to do that?" Her eyes couldn't leave the image of Raven. _Wait… Her daughter? Was this Raven's mother? What the fuck am I doing inside Raven's mother's body? How in the hell could I have ended up in her?_ _If Du'grel did this, he has even more of a twisted sense of humor than I thought…And he knew Raven´s mother well enough to have one of her memories inside him... _

"**Ever since you came here, I think. I just couldn't understand what I saw then, now I have adjusted to your… Mind? Language? What is it that I see? I see magnificent..." **It stopped to search for the right word. Jinx had a feeling that it wasn´t looking for it from his own mind.** "... colors dancing in and between symbols and sounds that I do not understand. It all mixes together into a thing you might call a "thought" or a "memory". I do not have a name for it but those names cannot describe what I see. It frightens and fascinates me."**

"**I started to comprehend some of the things I saw flooding from you after you started teaching me your language. You wondered how did I learn so fast. I saw something I recognized in the flow of your thoughts while you were teaching me I struggled to follow it with my sight and then I saw more and more words that I slowly started to comprehend. I saw when you pulled the meanings of the words from your mind and I also saw something else." **

"**Then something started playing out in front of me. I saw this girl as an infant, she had too many eyes and they glowed with the fires of hell, but still you cared for her, even though people around you despised her for her heritage. Partly because you were forced to, but I saw what you ignored and chose to forget, I saw through that if they were to take her away you would fight them until death. Luckily, they decided that you should be bestowed "the burden of raising this demon-child", so you could stay as a true priestess of Azarath and live an relatively easy life, in comparison to the life that would be yours if they would try and take Raven away from you. Later you decided that it was just her father's way of making sure that she lived, dark magic. We both know how idiotic that sounds."**

"**The infant grew to be a smart, energetic and a beautiful child. It was harder and harder not to care now and sometimes you allowed yourself to hold her and comfort her when the never-ending lessons of self-control became too much for her small heart to bear. The small moments of comfort she received from you became treasured moments for her, and the times you didn't, hurt her more than you ever knew. She became as distant to everyone as you to her and she withdraw in her self to protect herself from hurt. She retreated into fantasy worlds where love and comfort existed, even for her. She read books and found hobbies where she could be alone and that had that much less possibilities of getting herself hurt. Archery, yoga, gymnastics, gardening, alchemy, conjuration, magic The children of her age despised her because of the blood running through her veins and the terrible prophecies your monastery spread did't help either. Did you know that she was almost stoned to death once? You saw the bruises and the tears she tried to hide when she flew in the monastery that night, and you did nothing. You just walked away and tended to your birds. Acted like you didn't know. But she was a telepath and knew that you knew about her pain You had some naturally telepathic tendencies that you were somewhat aware of and sent a few of the birds to coot behind her window, to offer some kind of comfort. You never allowed her to tend to them and she always connected them to you. They presented you for her" **The thing in the ice paused and stayed silent for so long that Jinx thought that the frightening monologue was over. Then it suddenly kept on talking like nothing had happened.

"**Would you like to know what happened to those birds? I pieced it together from the pieces of information you chose to ignore…"**

"Please, stop…" The woman whispered in an barely distinguishable voice. The thing might have not heard her, but Jinx doubted it. It could see into her mind, so why wouldn´t it know when this woman didn't want to hear any more.

**"****You never saw those birds again. She probably hated you so much then that she broke their necks with the power her father gave her. They didn't even fly away when she tortured them one by one because of your influence, pretending each time that she was twisting your head until she heard a satisfying crack. Those doves where probably torn to pieces by her blind rage. She probably had more than two eyes when she did it. Probably the first time she felt gratitude for her father…"**

"**Why are you crying?" **It's voice had stayed calm and innocent the whole time. It sounded like it had not said those things to hurt her, it was like an child telling her mother that his or hers father had touched them in a funny way, it didn't know that the things it said were hurtful, but still it cut as deep if the child was lying intentionally. "The things you say are terrible. You should watch what you say in the future, the truth hurts most people more than any lie could."

"**In the future? What future? I am trapped here and you are the only one that bothers on coming down here. I have forgotten who I am and don't know nothing about the outside world. I cannot go out there. Your mind proves my… Wait…"**

"You saw it, didn't you? That ability is going to help you and after you get out there try to look at as many minds as you can. Learn their languages and their darkest secrets, but only use those secrets when it is absolutely necessary. You'll come to know when and how while you learn more about people."

"**You can't do this! I must have been locked away in here for a reason. You can't let me out! It is impossible! Please, stop!"**

"There was no reason to locking you away like this, I know. You'll know after you're freed. You will have to do something for me." The soothing touches that she had been planting on the ice had formed a incredibly complex map of runes. Something inside Jinx's mind was annoying the hell out of her. That rune map looked familiar. As she finished the last of the runes they started glowing bright red and the ice started to slowly melt under them. "Promise me you'll protect her no matter what… Save her…"

"**And tell her you are sorry? How can I be that close to her if I'm a flame? That is impossible. You should not let me out and I might die before I get to her."**

She laughed. It sounded a little too merry to be coming from a sane person. "That's why I chose you; you can not die. Doesn't this prove it already? You have been frozen beneath thousands of tons of ice and still you lived on. A secret that had been passed on down _my_family proves that."

"**Why didn't I see it then? What is this secret and how have you been able to hide it from me?" **This was the first time that any kind of emotion showed from the voice. It sounded bitter and angry, furious even. It was nothing but a hiss now. _I know that I have heard that voice before! _

The first symbol melted through the ice and It flashed crimson red and fluttered into the fire like a piece of paper. The crimson light started to systematically burn the rest of the runes, spiraling out from the first one and flashing brighter every time. It reminded Jinx of a countdown.

"**What is going to happen to you? My rebirth is most likely to be violent."**

"I will perish, but I have met my purpose."

"**Perish? I do not know that word. What does it mean?"**

"It means The End; Death." A stunned silence followed her words. The fire seemed to stop moving entirely, before spinning back into motion at an even faster pace.

"**No! You can't die, I won't let you!" **The last symbol burned and the ice started creaking. The fire seemed to try to retreat as far it could from it. **"Leave now! I might be able to to hold myself back until you get far enough!" **The ice under her feet crackled and shuddered. The whole cave was shaking from the bottled up power. She had a distant smile on her face and she looked like she was completely at peace. She shook her head and stood there, looking like a saint in an dirty robe. "You need my mind if you are to survive out there." _She doesn't fear death at all. Her body is completely calm, not even a hint of fear. This woman is not sane… So it __does__ run in the family… _

A silent crack and the ice exploded outwards. There was a moment of silence when the fire still tried to hold itself back. It really did seem to care for the woman. What was it? Was it really someone trapped beneath thousands of tons of ice for some unspeakable act that it didn't even remember anymore? Must have been some crime to get this kind of punishment. Jinx felt how her mind started distancing itself from the foreign body when the fire hit it and it was torn apart by the cold flames rushing up along the tunnel formed in ice. The last thing she saw of the vision was the fire shooting out of a hole in a frozen field. It must have been a lake for there to be so much ice. The fire rose to the skies and set the skies aflame in it's joy of being free from it's prison. After a moment it let out a distant sound and started flying towards a city floating in the skies. The city was already be in flames and there were some sparks of fire circling it. Her dream/vision faded away and she found herself laying in her own bed. She wasn't startled awake or she wasn't drenched in sweat, she just felt very cold and she clutched the sheets closer until she couldn't smell the ice anymore and felt like her body was back into it's normal temperature.

She got up and tried to piece together some things from her dream. She felt like she knew who was the fire behind the ice. She walked into the shower and tried to get some water out of the pipes. She only heard some gurgling inside the walls when she turned on the hot water and when she turned the cold one the toilet flushed and a trout jumped out of the bath tub. She knew exactly who had broken her shower. That poor guy was so afraid of this place that he broke it... But why the trout?

Du'grel... I remember his smell, he smells like winter. Like snow and... Jinx couldn´t believe how stupid she had been. Of course it was Du'grel! She had seen how he had turned back into that flame and seen how he had held that fire on his palm. Du'grel also sounded like that **booming **voice that the fire had when he was using telepathy. And didn't he say something about _seeing _how she really was back when they first met? So those runes were given to him by Raven´s mother... along with a mission he was forced to accomplish since the runes were the thing that kept his body together. Jinx had recognized some of the runes when Raven's mother had written them into the ice, before they were stretched by being on on Du'grel´s skin. She had read some of them and understood that there was a kill switch in the powerful enchantment that Raven's mother had sealed with her life. If Du'grel hurt Raven in any way or failed to protect her, the mind that he had been able to piece together on his short life would be torn apart and he would return as the all consuming cold fire that had frozen inside a frozen lake. She walked to the suffocating trout flapping around the floor and picked it up.

But why the trout? Was it something that was familiar to him from the lake and his sub-consciousness tried to force him to remember it by materializing them everywhere around him? That... was ridiculous, but it made sense in some ludicrous way. She ran some water into the bathtub and dropped the trout in it before it suffocated. So now she had a new pet.


	9. Chapter 9

**My god, it is huge!**

**The chapter I mean. What did you think I was talking about? I didn't want to split up Du'grel's adventures in a** **other world, so I ended up gramming it into one chapter! Hope you enjoy it and I really hope you'll find something to flame about.**

**I'm starting to feel abandoned. :(  
**

**I'll try to get this story to be less dark than it is now, but... well, I'm not promising anything. We will be visiting Raven's mind again soon! I love making fun of Raven! YAY!**

**I'll stop now...**

**Crazy Laughter**

* * *

**Chapter 1 **

Where the hell am I, he thought. He was still suffering the aftermath of the transformation from the flame to his humanoid form, but was still able to keep track of his surroundings. He was lying in a crater that he had made while… Landing? Why did he land? Did he drop down from the Watchtower? Did they really shoot him down to earth, as he had suggested? Soon as he was able to control his body he looked up and focused his sight on the sky. He saw satellites, meteors, space junk, but no Watchtower.

Where the hell was he? There should have been all kinds of high-tech restraints on him to keep him contained for the government to lock him up. He spread out his consciousness and wondered why everything felt so foreign: the land, the air; the energies floating about. There was something very serene about it all. He sensed a high-energy concentration closing in on his location. He felt as powerless as he did up in the Watchtower and didn't even try to get up from the crater. He allowed his body to go unconscious, but left his sight slightly outside of it, just so they couldn't detect it.

"Someone needs help!" A female voice shouted while rushing from behind the trees (He had landed in the middle of a forest). She floated a few inches of the ground and Du'grel detected the power and serenity flooding from her. This woman intrigued him, so he decided against attacking her. She leaned down to him and seemed shocked by how cold his body was. She laid her hands on his chest and he felt a twinge of invading energy. He wondered if she was trying to hurt him. She was praying while the energy flowed from her hands. Was she trying to heal him or something? He stopped absorbing the energy to see what it would do to him. He felt how his body started warming up and he heard the whispered words echoing like thunder inside him.

_Interesting… Should I play a wounded bird or should just jump up? I don't know anything about where I am... I'll just wing it._

He retreated back into his body and allowed her to warm it up until he felt very comfortable. He was in her arms, in a beautiful woman's arms. _Oh, shit! Damn it all to hell! _He opened his eyes and saw her; she was sleeping. He could almost see the Z's floating above her head. _This is fortunate. Maybe she goes to sleep when she uses her powers too much. That makes sense; I can feel her power regenerating already_. He pushed her away and got up with his half-erect member dangling above her. He heard someone crashing through the trees, cursing heavily. _This will not look good. _He started franticallysummoning some clothes on him. His whole form exploded to be covered by black smoke and only his eyes shone through. _Fucking shit hell! I look like a demon now. Things just are not going my way. _

"Well what is it Belldandy? Who the hell would be here, in the middle of nowhere? It was just a meteor, believe me." She finished her sentence and then saw Du'grel. Her face darkened and he shouted something in a language he couldn't understand. That shocked him more than the lightning that shot out from the sky and made him fly away from this "Belldandy".

_I didn't understand that! Even though I saw her mind, I still didn't understand that! I have to find out why that is so. _He forgot all about his erection and the familiar black coat with the big hood appeared on him. His hood was up and still only his eyes shone through. The unknown woman was about to throw another bolt of lightning. "Please, **stop!** I am not what you think! I did not try to harm this woman, actually I owe my life to her." He bowed respectfully with his left arm arching to the side and his right foot a little outward. He did the exact Tamaranian courtesy bow without knowing it. It was only done to Tamaranians by Tamaranians, so he shouldn't have known it. It was a taboo to do it to foreigners on Tamaran.

The woman stopped moving all together and she looked like a statue standing there. She was wearing clothes that really made every curve on her body pop out. She had white hair and a bronze skin and her eyes were fiery. Was she mad at him? Of course she was, but wasn't she attacking him? "I already told you, I didn't try to hurt your friend in any way. I owe her my life and… offer my servitude." There, that should convince her…

Still she wasn't moving and her eyes flared up even more. Du'grel looked a little deeper in her mind and found out her name. "Urd, why are you not **moving.**" She steadied herself and then a little hesitantly spoke to him. "Offer your servitude, huh? Do you have any idea what you just did?" Du'grell dropped his hood and raised an eyebrow. He saw how she was a little surprised by his youth. _Or is it my hair? I can't read her that good. _She shook her head and decided to deal with it later. "Who are you?"

"My name is Du'grel and I have no idea how I got here. Where am I?" He kept everything in his stance and in his eyes as emotionless and cold as possible. He instinctively talked in the same language that she did. He saw every word from her mind and he learned as he went. It had always been natural for him. He only faintly remembered the time when it took effort. Urd stepped closer and still looked suspicious, she glimpsed at Belldandy by his feet. He forced his eyes to flare out to be threatening. "What is your relation with this woman?" He raised his hand and formed a bright orb of energy to rest on his palm. He didn't actually intend it to intimidate her, but to only show her that he was not totally powerless.

"I'm her sister. Are you supposed to be her bodyguard or something?" She stepped forward, ignoring the light in Du'grel's hand. He had never indented on using it against her; He was going to revive this Belldandy character. Now he was not sure if he should. The energy was almost identical to the energy she had tried to revitalize him, but still her body could start fighting against it. Now seeing the differences in the patterns of her and Urd, her sister, he was quite sure that this would kill Belldandy. He should not take that kind of risk yet. He seemed to be stuck here and the world he was in was completely foreign to him. He had already started copying some of the free energies of this world. Now he knew that the air, earth and simple plantlife´s energies were very different from the ones he had adjusted to. He had to stay here for a while before he could get back.

"For the time being." He absorbed the energy back into his body through his arm. He grimaced as it felt like it was boiling his flesh. _She definitely would have died from that. _He stepped back when Urd rushed to her sister's side. He left his body and started scanning the area. Seemingly, he was in Japan and not on the earth that anything like the Justice League existed. The energies were also wrong in so many ways. Everything seemed so… personified. Everything seemed to have a mind or at least some kind of consciousness. It would take some getting used to, but with time he would be almost immune to any harm that this world would try to throw at him and would be able to absorb it to make himself stronger. And to get out of here.

He followed Urd when she started heading back home. Du'grel ended up carrying Belldandy. He carefully stayed a few steps behind Urd, as if following her. He didn't want her to know that he already knew almost everything about her. He had noticed that it freaked people out without question. It didn't matter how good or forgiving someone was normally, but if someone started talking about your deepest and darkest secrets like every day things, they became full of hate and usually tried to kill you, but not before calling you every kind of devil they could think of.

So he followed Urd. Even though he didn't like when people called him a demon and tried to kill him; he did like shocking people. "Who is Skuld?" He was levitating slightly of the ground and he had Belldandy in his arms.

"What did you just say?" Urd spun around as she said that. This was the thing he loved about shocking people; they let go and let him in a little deeper. Now he knew another thing about Urd. "You are half-demon. She…" He nodded his head to Belldandy "… Is a goddess and Skuld is your little sister. Something about mechanics and machines in general…" He had a very distant look in his eyes and his voice sounded demonic. He shook his head a little and then smiled warily. "Sorry, I get like that sometimes. I think its telepathy…" He did not intend to reveal that much of his knowledge, but his mind was 200 miles east of the place where his body was, so it was a little more harder to concentrate on those kind of things. He felt how Urd blocked his mind from foreign influences. He was surprised that she could do that. Not even Raven was that good at it and she was supposed to stop his father from getting inside her head.

"I'll take her home. Meet you there!" He shimmered to the temple where she lived according to the facts that he had been able to pull out of Urd's head. He didn't actually know where was he supposed to lay her down so he shouted: "Keiichi, come help me with this!" He transformed into Urd and hoped that Skuld didn't decide to come out and see what the fuzz was all about. She would probably see right through his disguise. He was not in the mood to explain all of this right now. He would delay that until Belldandy was awake. He also had to snicker when he thought about how Urd was going to freak out.

"What happened, Urd?" A black haired and a man a lot shorter than him ran out of the temple and took Belldandy and started dragging her inside the temple with Du'grel/Urd. He had some idea where to go so he didn't make wrong turns, but if he were dragging Belldandy alone he would be totally lost. _Is the telepathy sunken so deep into me that I use it without knowing it? What am I? _They stopped and rested Belldandy down on a mattress and Du'grel tucked her in and told Keiichi to go away, perfectly mimicking Urd's voice and behavior when she was angry. He needed to think.

So he should start wondering how he got here. This was in a different time and space continuum than the one with Raven and the Teen Titans or any kind of superhero stuff. Everything was different and nothing that he knew existed. The burning point of this world was here: with Belldandy, Urd, Keichi and Skuld. Why didn't he want to see Skuld? Why was he so sure that she could see through his disguise? Or was his insecurity coming from something else?

Was Skuld special somehow? What exactly did he know about Skuld? Skuld was apparently into mechanics and kept on building the most ingenious machines just for her own pleasure. She felt more for these machines that she had felt for anyone based on the things that he gathered from Urd's mind. All of this was seen through Urd's mind and with her prejudices and opinions. If he wanted to know something about Skuld he would have to go and know her himself. He relaxed the parts of his mind that controlled his transformations. Now he was Du'grel with snow-white hair and glowing eyes, but when he relaxed completely something vaguely reptilian slithered into his features. You couldn't actually name what it was and you would suddenly find yourself staring at him trying to figure it out. Du'grel tried to always focus on keeping his features as "harmless" as possible, just to keep staring eyes off of him. His body was a kind of a resting place for his mind and soul, that had been infused together as long as he could remember, but still he knew that it had been normal once, his body, soul and mind had been dependant on each other. His mind could leave his body as he wished and roam around the world around it. Now he stepped out of his body and walked through the paper-wall without breaking it. _Gotta remember to do that when back in my body. I would just love to see their faces! _This was one thing he didn't understand about himself. Why did he feel so urged to shock others and laugh at their expense? He had to get what ever it was that martian had found out about him. He was sure that it was something important. He saw it in the fabric laid out in front of him.

He kept a sharp eye out for high-energy signatures. Where was Skuld? He wanted to find her and find out why it felt like such a bad idea to even see her. He saw the sleeping Belldandy and the approaching energy signature of Urd (estimated time of arrival: 2,5 minutes) and a small flame of power that was almost lost in the white noise of energies that was Du'grel's hunting ground. _She is so weak! Yet… Why do I know that she is the only one who can seriously hurt me here? Was that it? _He walked closer in his spiritual form. Could she see him if he crossed her line of sight? Did he want her to see his true (?) form? He walked through a wall and saw her surrounded by all inds of mechanical parts.

She was sitting cross-legged on the floor and was tinkering with a random bunch of wires and screws. Du'grel couldn't wrap his mind around the thing that supposedly was going to come out of that. She was so absorbed into her work that she wouldn't see him if his body was here. _She has beautiful hair. Black as night and almost as long as her… How can she walk around with it without it getting stuck on things? Gotta ask her sometime. Now, careful… _Du'grel hovered closer on his spiritual form and slowly started forcing himself through her mental barriers. Things like the mind were not actually bound _inside _the body; it kinda floated around you and gave you some limited paranormal abilities. For instance: just a normal human with no mental training at all would have a feeling that _someone_ was watching them if there was a ghost in the vicinity. That was just with the untrained minds that had no idea that their mind was not in their head and let it hang out vulnerable to any kind of mental probing or attack. Skuld was a goddess, so she should know better so Du'grel was extremely careful when approaching her. He had run across some sneaky ways of protecting your own mind and they often included destroying the offending mind.

You could call Du'grel a friend of fine arts for his urge to peek into every mind he met and thoroughly search and know the ones he liked. Every mind was beautiful and complex in its structure; no mind could be the same as the other. Memories, emotions, grudges, thoughts, images, and sounds: they all piled together around the person's aura for a person like Du'grel to read. Every single part of the mind was different from the other and it always floated around the person like a cloud of the person itself. No one had ever asked him to recognize someone from a photograph, but if someone did, he probably couldn't link the picture to the person in question. As said before the mind was a shroud that covered the person entirely and Du'grel didn't bother on memorizing people's facial expressions since he knew that those could be mimicked. He was a skin-jumper after all. He could mimic that shroud that covered people and gave away their every thought, his form changed when he absorbed that complex construction of energy into his flesh. It was ecstasy for him and he enjoyed wearing others minds around him. He could also mimic lifeless things, but what's the fun in that?

He stopped when his mouth was just an inch away from Skuld's neck. If he would be breathing Skuld would feel his breath on her neck. If he would be in his body he could smell Skuld, but now he could feel Skuld's mind smothering him all around him. He could feel what she felt and made her feel them more intensely. He swam in her aura and felt how Skuld shivered and looked up from her work when Du'grel tried to stimulate her senses even further. She was probably acknowledging colors and smells she had never even been aware of. He saw himself through her eyes, but he couldn't stop tasting her essence. He started tinkering with her sense of feel and made her feel every psychical contact as pure pleasure. He watched how she clutched the screwdriver in her hand and whimpered when the foreign sensation flooded her. Du'grel knew how intense it was for her and was worried that she would pass out if she wouldn't stop panting so hard. He intensified the feeling even more and started to slowly retreat out of her aura. This was exactly what he had done with Jinx and he kept on cursing his own weakness for doing it again to someone. It had possibly screwed Jinx up beyond all repair and he really didn't want to do it to this innocent girl. He tried to undo the things he had done to her brain and nervous system and he was surprised when he was able to reverse every one of the changes. He only left the pleasure there to take its peak and then vanish. He had to hope that she would also forget about his spiritual form floating around her.

He hastily ran through walls and practically lunged into his own body when he felt how close Urd's extremely pissed off aura was. She was running through the door of the temple right now. He felt how his body was groggy from the separation but he forced it to take his human features again. It felt harder than before as his body had relaxed and now keeping his face human was like flexing a muscle and required concentration. He jumped up and stepped away from Belldandy. He didn't want them to get the wrong idea. He heard how Urd screamed at poor Keiichi for falling for his trick. Du'grel stepped out of the room just when Urd was about to storm in.

"Could you keep it down, you'll wake her. I realize that my disappearance was unexpected, but I had my mistresses comfort at mind." He saw how his words started to sink in. Urd's face was suddenly an inch away from his and she was shouting at him.

"Mistress?! What the fuck is wrong with you?! You dare start playing those kinds of games with my sister! For your information Keiichi here is Belldandy's boyfriend so you'd better back off!" Urd was dangling Keiichi by his sweater in front of Du'grel. Du'grel took a step back and bowed his head slightly. "I am afraid that you misunderstood the purpose of my words. I did not mean the word "mistress" as a part of any kind of sexual game of submission, but only as a representation of my servitude. I would be honored if you would accept this as an representation of my regret for my hasty decision." Du'grel pulled out a huge bottle of sake from his coat and offered it to Urd while bowing deeply. Keiichi was dropped to his feet and Urd snatched the bottle out of Du'grel's hands. He checked the label and her eyes widened. She looked at Du'grel suspiciously and opened the bottle with a trained move of her hand and took long gulp out of the bottle. Du'grel counted five mouthfuls. He fought against a smirk that was trying to force itself on his face. So, a goddess is a drunk.

"I guess you can't be that bad…" Her voice was slurring and she stumbled away without even giving him another thought. Du'grel felt hurt; it couldn't be that easy. "Is she an alcoholic? I had a feeling she would like some sake, but…" Du'grel shrugged and then turned his eyes to Keiichi. He looked at him and thought that he was a nice guy, but couldn't go deeper with just his eyes because he didn't have a distinctive energy pattern. He was a full-blooded human, in other words: Normal. He offered him his hand. "I'm Du'grel, Keiichi. I'll be probably spending a lot of time with you so it would be in our best interest if we would be friendly with each other." He knew that he sounded awfully plain, but all of his focus went into keeping his features human. This was Japan so being polite was just playing it safe.

Keiichi looked at his hand like it was something that crawled out of the toilet and had started speaking to him. Du'grel looked down to his hand. He wasn't actually surprised that there was a trout poking out of the sleeve of his coat. He sighed and shook his hand and the trout flapped around on the floor a couple of times. "Don't ask…" He said while kicking the trout out the door and into the pond a couple of blocks from the temple.

Keichi snapped out from his haze and took his hand and they shook hands briefly. Both of their hands smelled like trout after that. "I'm Keichi. Um… So are you related to Belldandy in some way?" Du'grel raised an eyebrow and shrugged briefly. "Wouldn't know, but I think it's extremely unlikely. I am in depth to her and I'll repay it in the way I know: Servitude. If you're as close to Belldandy as it seems, then I am at your service as well." He did a deep bow with his left hand stretching to his left and his right leg slightly outwards. He wondered why he thought that he had to do it just that way, but simply shrugged it off like most of these kinds of things in his life. Keiichi stammered back and tried to say something, but only managed to wave his hands vaguely. His hands moved across the door to the room where Belldandy was sleeping and his own chest and then to him. "Do you mean that will it be like with you and her? I don't know about your relationship, but I doubt it will be the same. I serve and protect her as long as it takes for me to repay my dept." Keiichi finally managed to get his mouth to work. "And how long will that take?"

_Damn it! I made up the whole dept thing. What now? Well, I guess I'll just wing it. _"It depends… I live by a strict honor -code and she saved me from an un-heroic death with the cost of her own life force. I really don't know. Might be a couple of days, but it could also be as long as she lives." He didn't lie that much: She did _try _to save him, but the threat to her own life force was Du'grel himself. Oh, god truly was in the details. And these women are goddesses… I have a hard time believing that. They have power inside them and it seems like it goes down to their genome; they were born with it. So they are part of a nation that is super-powered and call themselves goddesses. That spells disaster for me, but they don't seem to commandeer the universe.

"If you are as close to Mistress as Urd said, I will be at your service as well, but I will call you master only if she asks me to." Du'grel said while idly leaning on a wall. He had his hands a couple of inches apart from each other and he was slowly parting them further and further apart. Small jolt of electricity crackled between the parted hands. His hands trembled from exhaustion and he leaned against the wall for support. "Damn… I can't even do that much anymore…" He wiped the sweat from his forehead to his sleeve. He couldn't believe that he was sweating after trying to produce and control electricity. It had been so easy back in the world where he had the unforgiving duty. He should have been free here, but still he felt the never-ending need to protect Raven and stay close to her. It was not affection, lust, or even friendship. It was just a forced need for closeness. He didn't know why he was so obsessed with saving Raven from some unknown threat, but he did know how to do it.

"Ah! Hello, Skuld." Du'grel just now noticed Skuld standing in the other side of the hall. She was peeking out of her room with the door opened only a couple inches. When Du'grel noticed her she gasped and slammed it shut. _So she does recognize me. I'll have to deal with that later. Now I'll have to play my part as Belldandy's servant to be able to stay here. These people seem to be key on understanding the powers of this world. Through understanding, there is control and when I control the energies again I can brake this world's laws and return to the one that matters. _Du'grel walked to Bellbandy's side because she seemed to be waking up. He allowed Keiichi to go past him and kneel down next to her, but he carefully put a look of protective resentment on his face. He thought that it was expected on this situation if he really was bound to protect her. His loyalties lied elsewhere, but for him to be able to get back to those loyalties, this was necessary. He had been on this world less than an hour and already its cheery outset sickened him. They didn't even consider the option that someone would want to hurt them. They would even _turn their back to him. _There was no telling what someone could do if they would be given the chance. He had noticed that he couldn't be killed so he sometimes had let someone to try and kill him, just to make him or her fear him. It had been necessary at certain points in his life. Over the years that he had acknowledged his own existence, his life, he had always been pursued forward by a relentless need to find someone. Now, when he had found her, he had a relentless need to stay by her side and protect her from any harm that might come to her. And to prepare for something in the near future that would require him to have more power. At times he wondered what would his life be without this relentless duty.

"I am glad that you are well." She got up and looked around. "Oh! How long have I been asleep?" Du'grel could do nothing to stop the smile forming on his lips when he heard the innocence in her voice. _She really needs to those powers of hers to survive if she's that naïve. It would be so easy to rip her throat open and – No! I can't think like that. I am not a monster and I'm supposed to be protecting her. I probably couldn't even absorb her power with my limited understanding of this world… But I wasn't thinking of that was I? I just wanted to kill her and taste her blood on my tongue. Do I really feel inclined to hurt people if I am not forced not to? Where does all this hate come from? What has happened to me for me to feel this much hate against the whole world? I wish I could remember… _He forced his mind to come back to here and now and tried to recall if someone had spoken to him in the last few minutes. No time to wallow in the past right now. He couldn't recall if someone had said anything to him, but the two of them seemed to be looking at him funnily. "Sorry, I guess I wasn't really listening. Did you say something, mistress?"

Belldandy looked perplexed and looked into his eyes. She looked into his eyes so innocently and he saw how she opened her mouth to ask him why did he call her mistress, but she seemed to freeze in place before a word could come out. Something in them made her turn her eyes away and move a little closer to Keiichi. "What is the matter, mistress? I know that my eyes are frightening and unusual. Seemingly they have very different effects on people: Some find them appealing and turn their eyes from them, but with some people they are like a shattered mirror; The shards of this imaginary mirror reach into your deepest depths and then mirror them to me, but also give you glimpses into my inner self…" He snapped out of the lecture he had pulled out of the forgotten memory that in any other way eluded him. This world must affect him in some way. He would have to find out in what way. "Wow… I didn't know that I knew that. Things must be starting to come back to me. What exactly did you see? Tell me, I know nothing of my past." Why would he lie to these people about these things? He did say that he lived by a strict moral code, but he didn't even want to think about that right now. These goddesses might be able to bring back his identity! Belldandy only retreated further back from the crazed look in his eyes. Du'grel shot forward and grabbed Belldandy's shoulders. "Tell me! Tell me now!" He shook Belldandy and raised her off the floor with a painful grip on her arms.

"Hey! Stop that!" Keiichi lunged at Du'grel. He felt like he had lunged at a brick wall. Even though he was a relatively short person and lacked the bodyweight to throw Du'grel down, the impact should have at least staggered him enough for him to let go of Belldandy. Instead he only turned his eyes to Keiichi and growled deep in his throat. He might not be able to control the surrounding energies of this world, but his own body was still his to control in any way. He had simply increased the density of his body when he noticed that Keiichi was lunging at him. He weighed about 300 lbs now and the floorboards creaked under him. He looked back at Belldandy when he felt her hand on his cheek. He had stopped shaking her when he concentrated on changing his body's density. _Doesn't she know I could bite her hand right off if I wanted to? I'm sure that my teeth have grown to those fangs again because of this little tantrum. _He lightened the grip he had on Belldandy and a soft blue glow surrounded his hands. _Yeah, it was a tantrum. I should be able to control myself. _He was borrowing one of Raven's tricks, since his own didn't work, yet. He healed Belldandy's bruises and the minor fracture on her collarbone. He set her down on the floor again and she still had her hand on his cheek. She was looking into his eyes again and things about her past memories and emotions flooded into his mind and… something must have been flowing into her mind too. He had apparently been right about that shattered mirror effect. Belldandy's eyes welled up and tears started to run down her face. It was clear that she wanted to turn her eyes away from the things she saw in him. Du'grel was already about to turn his own eyes away when Keiichi pulled Belldandy away from him. He placed himself between Du'grel and Belldandy. Du'grel smiled wearily and tilted his head.

"I'll have to admit: that's admirable, but don't you think that she couldn't have torn me to pieces if she really thought that I would harm her? She really does think the best of people, doesn't she? Even though, she still would and could harm me quite severally. I am a warrior, I was trained to be one and right now I know a dozen of ways how to kill you without no one being able to do anything about it. So, **Stand aside!**" He sent a telepathic message straight into his body without even bothering trying to tamper with his soul or mind. Keiichi clearly had deep feelings for this woman and they blurred his judgment. He wanted to know what she saw before her mind started to reject the foreign memories… Again, he didn't know how he knew that. Had he been some kind of professional telepath in his forgotten life? Keiichi stepped aside, but he seemed to be fighting his own body when he did that.

"Don't worry, my little tantrum has passed and now I only want to ask her what she saw in my eyes. And besides: Even though I am physically powerful, I don't have enough power to hurt Mistress Belldandy." He said and stepped in front of Belldandy. He noticed that he was just a little taller than her, but still he had a clear view into her cleavage. _No! Bad boy! Down boy, down! Why can't I stop thinking like a horny teenager? Oh yeah, I am one. _He turned his eyes to Belldandy's eyes, but not before he changed them to the same kind of blue as hers, hoping that that would stop the shattered mirror effect they seemed to cause otherwise. It looked like it worked since she didn't zone out again when she looked into his eyes. "You… You poor thing…" She said and placed her hand again on her cheek. _What? What the fuck did she see? _"Belldandy, please tell me what you saw. I can't remember anything of my life before… my current goal. What was it? What did you see?" Du'grel spoke with a low and soothing voice. _How stupid can she be? I've been asking her that a dozen times and still she hadn't answered me. _

Tears were rolling down her cheeks and she was opening and closing her mouth, but not a word came out. Could it really be that bad? Belldandy was kind of sensitive, so it might not be as bad as Du'grel thought. _Screw this! _He cleared his throat and was about use his newfound mind-control on her.

"Whatcha hell is goin' on in hier?" A drunken Urd appeared in the doorway and Du'grel decided against using his mind-control. He just didn't want to show all his cards yet and now that he thought of it he didn't really have to use it. Belldandy would tell him eventually. He had to calm down and adapt to the situation at hand.

He stepped back from Belldandy and took a couple of deep breaths. What the fuck had gotten into him? He really should not have done any of this. He wondered if he could make them forget that this happened at all. He was probably too weak for that, but there was one think he could do.

Du'grel placed his right hand on Belldandy's forehead. There was a bright flash of light and Keiichi thought that he saw a bolt of lightning jump up Du'grel's arm. Du'grel saw the things that Belldandy had seen now. They ran past his eyes and then sunk back into the depths of his mind that they came from. Now he knew why he couldn't remember his past.

It was because he had none. There had been only a cold and lonely existence before his mission. He had been trapped in ice for countless years. He had had no mind, no memory, no life. He had lived a parody of a life because the universe forced him to survive. There were some ancient laws that were not meant to be broken. He knew nothing of these laws, but they are the things that kept him alive. He cannot die because of them. Not in the real definition of the word. He was as close to immortal as anyone could get. Now he remembered how Raven's mother had crawled into his lair time and time again to teach him how to communicate and function out in the world. She had not even been surprised when Du'grel looked into her mind and had allowed it. He was quite sure that he could have destroyed her mind if she had started to fight back. Later he got so good at it that she didn't even notice it and he was able to make her forget the fact that she had even noticed his presence.

They had called the lake he was trapped in "The Wailing Lake" since there always was a constant wail coming from the rails on the ice, even when there was no wind to make it. Everyone who stepped onto the ice felt lightheaded and felt cold seep into their bones no matter what kind of clothes they were wearing. They also said that they felt unrivaled horror that wasn't theirs and felt like the ice was swallowing them into itself. They said they actually felt how it pressed against their skin and made it impossible to move an inch. If things were let to go this far the person in question would have a psychotic break and fight the ones trying to save him or her. They usually ran around until they fell into one of the bottomless rails on the ice. Some started to dig through the ice. Often they dug with their bare hands. No one had ever been able to recover the bodies. The ones that had been sent down there said that they saw a flickering white light up ahead. They stopped responding to any calls after that. Only thing the radio operators could hear was the constant wailing of the lake. It was an infamous cursed lake.

He knew this because he was the thing that caused those things to happen. He had been that flame and drawn those foreign minds to him. Their difference intrigued his mind and he tried to get them to him, but they had fought back… He had no control over his powers back then. They were drawn to him like moths to a flame. Their last moments were filled with terror when he invaded their mind and ripped it to shreds while trying to get to know them more. He had assumed that their minds were alike and he burned them away with his flame. All of this horror that his earliest victims had felt was mirrored into Belldandy. No wonder she was so traumatized. Well, now she shouldn't even remember any of those things she saw. He took them back by force. He could only hope that her mind stayed intact.

He was shot back from Belldandy when Urd shot a bolt of lightning at him. She had sobered up surprisingly fast after she saw what he was doing with her sister. He needed time to recover from these things he saw, so he allowed his mind to shut down. He forced himself to retreat further into himself and tried to look for those memories. His body would have to fend for itself for a while. He sunk deeper into his own psyche. He followed his memories backwards from the present and into the distant past.

He saw how he spent the night with Jinx. It flashed away from him and his life rolled backwards. He saw himself as a dragon. It was a lie that he regretted now, but had not seen anything wrong with it at the time. He saw himself on Tamaran, attending some annual warrior tournament and reading any mind that came in his way. He learned how to speak Tamarian while taunting the other fighters to attack. He didn't win the tournament then, but he learned many tamaranian styles of hand to hand combat while he was there. He also learned how to generate the energy that they used as projectiles in his own body. That was enough for him and he shimmered away to the next planet with sentient life: Earth. He sped up his search and any other planet he had visited on his journey to Raven. He saw how he arrived into thousands of different worlds and learned everything he could and found new forms of energy that his body could produce as soon as it learned it's defining qualities. He absorbed thousands of people on the first world he visited. He came down like a meteor made out of pure fire and burned a whole village to the ground before he was able to settle his hunger for energy. The folk of that planet were fish like humanoids that lived under the sea of a world where there were no continents and something like fire was completely foreign to them. He destroyed one of their underwater cities and they just swam into him like moths to a flame and were torn to pieces. They had energy sources that he learned to control and produce. Including their main source of energy: cold fusion. Since they lived underwater, normal fusion was out of the question and they only passed that road on the way to perfecting cold fusion. They had a magnificent and a complex culture, but he burned it all down and consumed anything he could. When he had calmed down enough he turned into one of the fish like people and waited there in a state similar to comatose. He couldn't control the body that he was in, but the runes forced him to take physical form.

When the rescue party came they treated him as the sole survivor and took care of his body while his mind and soul wondered inside it, scared in the foreign environment. Sometimes he was able to force his mind to take control of the body and caused it to convulse terribly. The doctors of the planet he was in thought that he was going to die, since they couldn't stop these seizures from happening. He kept on slipping back into that comatose for a couple of weeks. After that he started to map his surroundings and found that there were limits to his existence now. It was new to him and he was profoundly shocked by his limitations. He tried to control these limitations of his, but he couldn't quite get the hang of it. He had no reference point since he never really had a body. At least he couldn't remember if he had ever had one. He had never been a physical being, his existence until now had been as a being made out of pure energy. There had not been a body to grow old, so he survived those countless years trapped in ice. He had learned that he could form his energy into different things, but he had only imitated things that interested him. He could easily create something that resembled a body to the last detail, but making it alive and breathing was a whole another story. The presence of a working nervous system smothered his presence and forced his being to flow within it. It took time for his whole consciousness to gather up to his brain. Normally his body was his mind and soul, so this separation was painful for him. His mind was supposed to be in his body and control it. His soul therefore was outside his body, touching and controlling the world around him under the presence of his mind.

When he finally was able to control the body he was in, he surprised the doctors of the planet he was in. They had thought that he had swallowed vast amounts of the heavy water that was needed for cold fusion. When his nervous system started to shine through his scales they got really worried and sealed him inside a room, which was lined with lead. He took his time examining his new body before he banged on the enforced door. His skin was bluish in color all around and was lined with scales that looked like armor plating on his skin. His hands were like that of a frog's and his fingers were five inches long and there were fins on his back. Now when he visited these far back memories again he realized how humanoid these things were, even though there were creatures in the universe that didn't even resemble humans in any way, but still were superior to them in almost every other way. There were different paths to be taken and the road that humans, Tamaranians, Azarathians and a dozen others had taken was just a small side path from the vast road of life.

He had gotten up and swam to the door that was some kind of flat round piece of rock that would roll into the wall if you activated some kind of system. There were no buttons or handles anywhere so he waved his fin like hands around the door. He was getting desperate and noticed how his skin started glowing brightly. He couldn't stop it since it felt like he was returning back to his own self and greeted the feeling of braking apart into nothing and everything.

He slipped away from this memory and was thrown into his earliest conscious memory…

"What's exactly wrong with him again?" Keiichi asked Urd when he looked at the man rested in to a spare room in the temple. He hadn't moved at all in a day. He had been hit away from Belldandy by Urd when something like lightning was about to fly from his arm. Just in time to save Belldandy. So it seemed at least. Still Belldandy insisted on letting him stay at the temple. Seemingly, he had fallen from the sky and he had no other place to go. Only Belldandy could take care of someone who had attacked her like that. She didn't seem to remember any of it though. That was not good. What exactly did this Du'grel do to her? He kept on raging on about what she had seen in his eyes.

"Urd?" He said while touching her shoulder lightly. "Huh? Oh, he seems to be trapped inside his own mind. Belldandy's the only reason he's staying here. I would just… and the fact that we can't lift him up without using our powers. He's not human, that's for sure. He came from the sky, but he's not from Heaven. We checked: everyone's accounted for." Urd became silent and was deep in thought until Du'grel started babbling in some weird language. They ran to him and Urd checked the barriers they had set up to keep him contained and from breaking the floorboards. There were voices coming from his mouth, whispers, thousands of eerie whispers and voices all bunched together.

"LightBrightlightItdancesforusMommyupwardsittwistsAnddeathitbrings WhatishappeningHelpHelpmeIamareboilingIamaredyingofthelightWhereismommyItiscoldinthelightWearebreaking…" It was a tireless stream of voices and words. You could picture countless of lost souls saying those words. The voices stopped and Du'grel lay easy on his bed. He was now some fish-like thing flapping inside the magical barrier, not able to breathe. He had a mermaid like tail and long fingered flippers as hands. "What's going on? Why did he change?" Keiichi screamed when the fish's eyes turned to him. At least they hadn't changed, so you could know that it was him. "How the hell should I know? He turned into me earlier, remember, he is a shapeshifter!" Urd yelled back. Du'grel had started glowing faintly through the scales that covered his skin now. The room became chilly the instant the glow started and the temperature kept on falling as the glow became brighter. Urd grabbed Keiichi and ran out of the freezing room. She ran out of the temple and threw Keiichi at Belldandy, who was hanging laundry out to dry. She caught Keiichi and opened her mouth to ask Urd why did she throw Keiichi around so roughly. Urd interrupted before she got the chance. "Something's happening and it doesn't feel good, not good at all! Get as far away from the temple as you can!" Urd ran back into the temple and started calling out Skuld's name.

"What's up with her? That guy started glowing and she freaked out." Keiichi said and turned to Belldandy. "The room started to get cold when he started to glow, like he was sucking the warmth out of the air. Could he be a demon? One of Mara's friends, perhaps?" Keiichi was quick to make that assumption, since it would give him an excuse to throw him out. Belldandy shook her head and started leading Keiichi away from the temple. She trusted her sister enough to listen to her in these kinds of things. "We should get going, my sister is seldom wrong about these things." Besides, she also felt the gathering power that had made Urd so anxious, a mindless soul that only felt an endless hunger. What could have happened to that poor soul for it to be devoured by that much hate, Belldandy thought with tears in her eyes. She started running when the air started to get chilly and she started to hear a faint wail in the air.

"Hurry it up already, Belldandy!" Urd screamed while she flew past them carrying a very confused Skuld. "Pick Keiichi up and follow me!" Belldandy put her hands under Keiichi's and lifted off from the ground with him. She flew to Urd's side and both of them flew about a kilometer away from the temple before settling down in the shadow of a great big oak on a hill that had a great view down in to the city and to the temple they just abandoned.

"Um, could someone tell me what's going on?" Skuld got up and dusted herself off. She looked at each one of them in turn and when no one looked like answering her, she turned to Belldandy. "Big Sis, why were we in such a hurry to – " She got her answer when the temple they had just been in was engulfed in a huge pillar of white fire that stretched out into the skies. It's wail was carried by the wind to them and they fell to their knees as it seemed to suck away all of their power. They heard thousands of whispered voices go past them, whispers that had once been someone's dying words, voices muffled by the fire's wail. The fire spiraled towards the center of it's own axis and concentrated into a single blinding beam of light stretching out to the skies. The whispers were silenced and the goddesses got their power back. They looked in awe, as the beam of light collapsed into it's self and formed a perfect sphere floating slightly of the ground on the grounds of the temple. A voice echoed in the their minds and forced them all to their knees.

"**I woke from my endless slumber when a woman climbed into my prison under a frozen lake. She taught me how to speak her language. I learned how to read her mind and manipulate her. At first she came there to see if there indeed was something living trapped inside the ice. She knew of a legend that had been passed down her family that someone or something had been thrown in the lake before it froze over completely. As I said: at first she came there to prove my existence, but when I learned more of her mind I became able to control her. I was weak and could not force her hand, but I was able to amplify an emotion she had inside her. I desperately made it grow into a obsession in her mind and was pleased when I noticed a plan forming inside her head. **

**She kept on coming to me and I was careful to progress slowly enough not to arouse suspicion. I made that obsession grow inside her until she was certain that freeing me was the only thing that could keep her daughter safe. The need to protect her daughter consumed this powerful soul that had thought that she had taken everything into account. She had taken every precaution she could not to be beguiled into my deadly flame. I was clad that she didn't: she gave me the tools I needed to get out from my frozen prison.**

**Once she had taught me how to talk the basic language used by most of the civilized races in the known universe she came to me one last time. She had been able to mold a part of me to be like a child and I allowed that part of me to do most of the talking. She talked to my childish side soothingly, while summoning the runes needed for my freedom. I knew that I had to play by her rules, since she was the one to free me, but I did not expect her to be able to make the side of me that she had molded command me and keep me at bay. I had underestimated her. A mistake I swore to never make again.**

**There I stood, alone in a ruined city, no one by my side, no one there to tell I of the endless hunger raging inside me. I walked in the empty streets void of all life. Only indications of life I could see were the burned corpses that littered the street, I devoured them as any other thing void of life.**

**Sometimes I came across a living thing, I tried to touch them with my mind, communicate, but they all were burned by my cold hunger. I noticed that the sky became dark every once and a while and that there was also a burning sphere running across it when it was not. This puzzled me and I decided to get to the bottom of it. I was so determined that I even reached out to the burning sphere in the skies. I felt it's rays and learned how to devour them unto myself, but still it kept on burning beyond my reach. I learned that it journeyed across the skies, no matter what I tried. I found the ruined city to feel familiar, even though I had no memories to speak of myself. The whispers of the city led me to a building that I became to call, as the whispers, "the monastery". I settled my existence inside, in a room that I found to be familiar to the whispers. I listened and learned of their life for three lights and four darks. **

**They taught me how to affect and control the world around me. They sang to me, I sang back and learned. They wanted me to leave this sanctuary and find someone, a girl, a girl that was about to become a woman, they said. I asked where does this hate for her come from, then? I felt their fear when they found this fury inside myself. Their fear for her and of me, she was more important than I! **

**They decided to erase me. I was too dangerous to be unleashed upon the universe, they said. They started their song and I felt my own existence slipping away. I was afraid; I was driven by an instinct to survive. I used the tricks they had taught me and wrapped the existence around me, until it ripped and I escaped through the rip before they were able to exterminate me.**

**What would he have been without I? Without I there to give him purpose and intelligence, without I there to manipulate the people around him to like him, without I there to make our mark love him, accept him? Subtle changes in her moods and thoughts when she was around us were enough for her own mind to think that she started felling in love with. They were like falling dominos: tip one over and you bring down the whole damn thing. She was easy, but she acknowledged my existence by watching her friends. She noticed the subtle unnatural changes in them that she was unable to see in herself. I had to force the wretched bitch to give her blood to us, so I could break through some of the chains holding me down. **

**I decided to outsource. I needed someone to break the rune that those monks had been able to place. It kept the cold fire that was I, at bay and under my Other's control. **

**I had met another half-breed with demonic heritage. She was blissfully unaware of the blood running in her veins, but it screamed out to me and I couldn't let her slip from my grasp. I used whatever persuasion I could to my Other and was able to get him to play with her a little. Luckily, he had gotten a notion of being a superhero from those adolescent Titans. He would have interrupted her even if I had done nothing. I awakened her dormant demonic side and tied her to me in the process. I had no time for delicacies, so I overdid it a little. She became like a bitch in heat. A side effect that was… Pleasurable."**

The sphere stopped talking into their minds and started expanding out to cover the grounds of the temple that they _had_ lived until this freak blew it up. Keiichi had passed out from the impact of the sphere's words and Skuld was too weak to open her eyes. That sphere had drained them while talking to them through their minds. It had been a monologue just to keep their minds down and give him access to their soul. He could have been talking about politics; the context of the words was irrelevant; only the words as themselves mattered. They felt like someone had raked their brain through and left everything in an unholy mess; they felt used.

The sphere had covered the area it had devoured completely and was now twisting and turning into forms and shapes. They saw how small pillars of light shot out from the mass of light and then branched out to imitate trees top branches. Other similar structures exploded out of the concentration of light and the light seemed to lose its mass every time something sprouted out of it. It started to turmoil like a stormy sea when even more trees and other landmarks were molded out of the white light. The light squirmed like a living thing in agony when the roof of the temple started to form out of it. Everything that it had created from itself until now started to lose their luminescence and look like their real counterparts. When the white light disappeared in a blinding lightshow it looked like nothing had happened at all.

The goddesses felt how their energy rushed back to them and stood up warily. This couldn't be it, Urd thought. It seemed like they were getting away from this way too easily. He had destroyed their home, but now he brought it back into the way it was.

"Okay, I have no idea what just happened!" Urd said and threw her hands up in a sign of defeat.

"Maybe…" Skuld yawned and stretched leisurely before continuing. "… He was just a bomb constructed by Mara? That blast was powerful enough to destroy all of us if we would have been in the blast radius." She stated and a fiery glint set in her eyes.

"No." Urd simply stated and crossed her arms. After a while she started playing with a strand of her hair. Why did he do that? Was there a purpose for him to look into their minds? What exactly was he looking for? Skuld was about to press her point like she hadn't even heard Urd. She was sure that she was right and Urd was wrong. She always was. "He warned me before setting off. That's how I was able to get you out in time." Urd said this aloud without realizing it, but she was able to shut Skuld up. Skuld crossed her arms and looked away, towards the temple. Urd was mumbling to herself while in deep thought and Belldandy was fawning over Keiichi. _He's probably just faking it. _Skuld had never been able to accept Keiichi's and her big sister's relationship and had tried everything she could to stop them from getting too intimate.

She saw one of the doors of the temple open, no, someone walked straight through the thin slide able wall. Judging from the sudden crude hand gestures and stumbling that someone was cursing quite heavily. The figure dusted itself off and walked out in the middle of the temple's courtyard. There was only one choice on who it was, but still Skuld pulled out a pair of binoculars. She zoomed in on the figure in the courtyard and saw a man dressed in a long black coat and looking around, turning his head slowly from side to side. A shiver ran up her spine when the piercing yellow eyes seemed to look right at her. The eyes mesmerized her and it took her a minute to realize that the man calling himself Du'grel had disappeared and she only saw a fading shimmer on the place where he had just been. She suddenly had the feeling that he had snuck up behind her while the moment she had lost him and she dropped the binoculars and whirled around.

He indeed had found his way behind her, but hasn't really snuck up on her. He was standing right next to Belldandy, but no one else from Skuld had noticed him yet. Belldandy was humming a healing spell with Keiichi's head on her lap and Urd was still in deep thought. Skuld tried warning her sisters, but she couldn't get a word out of her throat when those eyes stared into hers. She remembered those eyes from the day before when they had caused her to feel the most unique things and they made her feel mixed feelings. She couldn't get a word out because she feared those eyes, because of the power they had over her, yet she couldn't turn her eyes away from the cold fire burning in them. He was just standing there, on Belldandy's side. His face was an emotionless mask, but his eyes burned with a never-ending cold fire. The air she breathed in her lungs was cold as ice and it was getting hard for her to breathe. She was sure that her lungs were frozen solid when he finally adverted his eyes and the cold went away like it never had been there.

"You are too careless, Mistress." He stated while looking down at Belldandy. Belldandy was too absorbed in healing Keiichi and didn't notice him at all, but Urd spun around and stared at Du'grel. She had forgotten that he could teleport. He had been able to sneak up on them. Why didn't she think of that? They could teleport as well, but she didn't think that someone would use that to hurt them… Now that she thought about it: Mara could teleport too. They had Banbei there to keep her away most of the time so that didn't really bother them anymore.

"I am glad that you were able to get everyone safe. I do not wish for any unnecessary harm to come to you or your sisters Urd." He looked at Urd. Shivers ran up and down her spine. He was so cold. There was no emotion behind his words anymore. He sounded like he could and would kill them if there weren't something stopping him; Urd made a promise to herself to not turn her back on this guy anymore. He pointed down at Belldandy and Keiichi. "What exactly are these two doing? Is it some kind of kinky goddess sex game, or something? The guy is just fine, but just doesn't want to open his eyes… Oh, there is some minor brain damage after all. My mistake." He kneeled down to them and put his hand on Keiichi's forehead. He kept it there until Keiichi suddenly jumped up from Belldandy's lap. There were five small round bruises on his forehead, each one were Du'grel's fingertips had been.

Du'grel bowed deeply when Belldandy opened her eyes and looked at him. "I live to serve you, mistress. You all must be confused now… Actually, I know that you are. Therefore: I will answer your questions the best I can." Expression crept back into his face and voice and he sounded completely normal now. Was he acting for Belldandy? "Well, what do you want to know?" He said and looked everywhere except their eyes.

"Why are you here?" Keiichi asked him. Du'grel looked at him and answered.

"I am here by accident. I am from a world were power is free and controlled by inviduals. It is personified and not controlled by a master system like here. I have a purpose to gather and control as much of this power as I can. I have to learn the foundation of these energies, so that my body can learn how to produce these energies on its own. This requires me to absorb vast amounts of these energies before my body begins to tolerate and copy it. I think I got thrown in here because my body couldn't take the overflow of power I was subjected to. Any other questions?" He looked at them warily when they didn't say anything. "We can pick this up at the temple if you would be more comfortable there. I can take the ones that can't fly." He didn't wait for them to answer. He walked over to Keiichi, grabbed him by his arm and then took Skuld's hand. They disappeared into thin air when Skuld was about to protest. "I don't need your – " The air shimmered in the place where they had been just a second ago.

Urd and Belldandy stood completely still for a while. Belldandy was confused and Urd was furious, because Du'grel seemed to be making fun of them. They both almost jumped out of their skins when they felt a hand on their shoulder. "Okay, I'll take you there as well then…" Space twisted around them until Du'grel was able to break it and the space and time became irrelevant. For a mere nanosecond everything and any time was just there were they were. Reality stepped in again and they were standing in front of Skuld and Keiichi, who were sitting on the floor by a table already.

"Shall we start questioning me, or is there something you would like, Mistress?" Du'grel asked Belldandy.

"Hold on a sec! Do you even know what you just did? You broke through the time and space continuum! Do you have ANY idea how dangerous that is?" Urd tried to slap him to press her point, but Du'grel dodged by stepping back. He put her hands in front of himself defensively.

"Yes, I do know how dangerous that is, but it's not as dangerous as you think. You see, when I do that I step out of this continuum and can choose where to go in that continuum. I step out of time and space and don't even exist for a mere split second, but because nature hates voids I can't stay in this space without space for long and I am shot back into the continuum immediately. Normally, I can control the place where I am shot back to and that gives me the ability to teleport anywhere, instantly." He took a deep breath and then continued, "Who wants ice cream?"

Skuld's eyes lit up and her hand shot up. Du'grel could do nothing but smile. "Ice cream for the lady in the back, then. What about you, Keiichi, what would you like? Are you hungry? Should I get you something then?"

"I'm just fine, thanks…" Keiichi mumbled. Du'grel nodded in return and then turned back to the goddesses standing in front of him. "What about you, Mistress?"

"Could you please stop calling my sister that? It's really creeping me out." Skuld said while playing with one of her bombs menacingly. Du'grel smirked and walked over to her. "Could I see that?" He said and held his hand out. His eyes seemed to be glued to the bomb. Skuld threw it from one hand to the other and his eyes followed. She thought that the small device started feeling cold in her hands. "Why should I?" She was now sure that it was cold. It was almost painful to hold it.

"It just looks interesting, that's all. I would like to know how to make one myself. It could come in handy." Skuld stopped playing with it and looked at him in awe. " By looking at it?" Du'grel simply nodded. Skuld dropped the bomb in his hand. "Do you know about these kinds of things?" She asked suspiciously. She was the one that invented the Skuld-bomb and found it hard to believe that someone could learn how to make one just by looking at one.

"I have a friend that is half-robot. Cyborg, they call him." He said like that would explain everything. He stared at the bomb intensively and his eyes flashed a little brighter. He gave the bomb back to Skuld and closed his eyes. He raised his hand up and down like he was weighing the bomb in his hand. His lips barely moved when he whispered quiet words. Something that looked like liquid light started forming on his hand. It looked like it was sweating out of the palm of his hand. He brought his other hand above the already held out hand and this liquid light started oozing out of it as well. Looking at him do this was interesting, but they had no idea what he was doing. They were also a little nauseated. Sweat dropped down his jaw, but he was determined to at least do this. He had absorbed a large chunk of this world's energy and then replicated it. This should have been within his limits. He should have been able to do more than this, but he was still sweating from the strain of creating this stuff he called "neutral matter". It was the stuff his body was constructed out of when he turned back from the flame. He thought that it was a toned down and controlled version of the plasma that was his flame, the base for it. It could take the shape of anything he wanted it to. Even pure energy and that made him able to shoot out rays of heat, light, fire and so on. Now he knew these things when he had access to the memories that stretched out further than he could fathom. How long had he been in that lake? He didn't know, but he would find out.

"There, I think I have enough now." He dropped the shapeless blob of light on is palm and looked very proud of what he had done. It did look cool when he threw a ball of light from hand to hand, but no one of them saw any meaning for it. "Back when I was in my world I could make tons of this stuff without even breaking a sweat. Here it makes me feel beaten up when I even make this much. I'm kind of proud of myself when I was even able to make this much." He smiled at their confused faces. "I forgot to tell you what this is, didn't I?"

They all nodded slowly. Du'grel opened his mouth to tell them, realized he couldn't really explain it to himself and, closed it and said: "Just watch, I can't really explain it." He held the blob of plasma up, so that everyone could see it. The blob started forming into a crude ball when he stared at it and when he touched it with his finger it took the shape of Skuld's bomb. It still looked like luminescent goo on his hand, but the light had dimmed down and it was the shape of Skuld's bomb. He tapped it once and it tensed up to metal and plastic.

He was now holding one of Skuld's bombs on his hand. He pressed a button on its side and threw it through the ceiling. He counted down from three and when he said "two" they all heard a boom. "The timer is a bit off… Well, you'll have to teach me sometime. I am going to get that ice cream now." He disappeared again. Their eyes were drawn to the hole on the ceiling.

"What… Did he just…?" Urd . She sounded defeated.

"Sure looks like it…" Skuld said and looked at the small device in her hands.

"Things like the laws of physics don't seem to matter to him at all. He breaks them all the time and I had to train for years to even be able to bend them!" She ran out of the room and they heard how she corked another bottle of sake. Her steps continued down the hall and she went into her room. She either stumbled or just broke something on purpose when they heard a crash a little later. She was going to get drunk again and they would have deal with a hung over Urd in the morning. They all let out a long sigh.

Keiichi turned to Belldandy. "Is it wise to let that guy stay here? He seems…" He stopped to think of a word that would describe the feeling he got from him. "… Violent." Yeah, that seemed right. The first time he saw him Du'grel had been playing with them. He had been clearly lying about the servitude thing, but there was something human in his eyes. Now his eyes were cold and Keiichi felt like Du'grel was looking right down into his soul and just waiting to rip it to shreds.

Du'grel had teleported as far away place he could think of. He was now sitting on one of Sahara's dynes and contemplating on the things that had happened to him on his short visit to this world. Now he knew about his past and his other side, the side of him that had survived for those countless years inside enchanted ice. Its soul had frozen a long time ago and Du'grel felt how his emotions were now dulled beyond the point were they could affect his decisions. He knew what he was now.

He was a monster.

Even though he might not had been purely evil, or evil at all, when he was born, but he had the misfortune to be born in an ancient Azarathian tribe that knew and despised demons. He was a half-breed, just like Raven, but a different line of blood flowed through his veins. His father had been a demon overlord that had rivaled Trigon in his prime. His father was almost as old as time itself and had seen its best days. Du'grel did not know his father's name and didn't even want to. It was his fault that he had ended up in that lake.

His father had lost its sanity a long time ago and it had amused it self by breeding different secies with each other. Most of its experiments only lived because he wanted to see how long would they survive even with the help of his magic. Abominations that begged for death, but still lived for the amusement of this demon. Every race he couldn't breed with its own seed it destroyed without mercy. It continued its experiments for millions of years. It was a demon overlord and that time was nothing to the likes of it. Of course there were thousands of lesser demons trying to claim its throne, but he was powerful enough to extinguish their existence. No worthy adversaries rose to defeat him and release the universe from its demented clutches.

And none would have if it were not for the people of Azarath. His father had found the desolate planet with simple organisms. It decided to control the planet's evolution so that the ape-like organisms would prevail and flourish. They did and the fork of evolution developing on this planet intrigued the ages old demon. They decided to rise on two feet and set down from the trees. They decided to use tools and started planning ahead. The demon became obsessed with the mental attributes of these apes and decided to try this way on other worlds under its control. He allowed things similar to these things he had found develop on countless other worlds and abandoned its other experiments. Almost every one of these experiments prevailed on their own world and developed differing ways of controlling the magical essence the demon had planted in their planet.

This demented excitement made the age old evil forget about the adversaries that have been puny when it had paid them any attention at all. They grew stronger and stronger in its absence and one stood out from the rest. It fought its way to the abandoned throne and kept it by slaying its rivals and feeding on the ancient essence that was still inside the forgone rulers failed experiments. The known universe shook in terror when it heard the name Trigon the terrible.

Far away from this the forgotten ruler kept on pushing the Azarathians in the right direction. It affected their generations directly and tried to create a race that was extremely receptive to its magical essence. During these trials the Azarathians developed an ability to see beyond the shrouds of space and time and see glimpses of the future, past and precent. They became aware of the malevolent force mutating their young and a hate for this demon became aflame. Azarathians divided into clans and a bitter and endless war raged across the ever-mutating generations. This action only helped this malevolent force that they swore to hate.

When the tribes spread apart they instinctively sought out people like them. This brought forth specialized tribes with differing abilities. Some could control the minds of others with their voice. Others could move things with their mind or see into peoples soul, making it impossible to lie to them or hide from them. The list went on and on, but the most useful powers prevailed and the tribe with the power of telekinesis was the iron hand that controlled all others. The mind benders bowed down to them and ruled beside them or through them. When the two tribe's blood mixed together with time it spawned the peak of the demon's breeding program. Their mind was able to bend time and space in almost any way, but within just a couple of generations they were unable to breed with the lower classes. The overdeveloped minds of the Azarathians caused for their bodies to wither and lose their ability to breed.

The demon overlord was furious from his blatant mistake and sought to repair the damage any way he could. It searched Azarath for a tribe that hadn't fallen from his actions. He found what he was looking for far in the mountains. The small tribe that was able to see into the souls had retreated into the mountains and had been able to keep away from the bitter war just because of their unmatched sight. It was impossible to surprise them in any way, since they could see your soul and know your intentions. Their eyes could see people's souls as a dazzling array of colors and it was impossible to hide from them. They could see into people's minds, but they couldn't affect them in any way so they were forced to train their bodies to have a fighting change. They also had to develop technology to survive in the mountains. Their tribe's peak technical achievement was a lightweight rail gun that they used to shoot their enemies from afar. It shot in a completely straight line and there was practically no delay on pressing the trigger and impact. They were feared and left alone because they were also immune to mind the other's mind tricks.

The demon was pleased and captured the whole tribe to be bred with the other tribes. He had endued the whole planet with more and more magical power and the air crackled with his power when the tribes were mixed again in the demons malevolent presence.

The demon had drained almost half of his power into this pet project of his and now even the humblest Azarathian was just as powerful as the lesser demon overlords. Their bodies were left to wither and die when their war raged with the power of their minds. Cities, villages, whole civilizations crumbled because of this unbalanced relationship with body and soul. They should not trifle each other; they should support each other's existence. Because of his fathers actions Du'grel's parents were forced to breed with each other.

His mother was a proud warrior of her tribe. She had not missed her mark once in her life and she always knew the true truth of others around him. Her eyes were the sharpest of all. The demon broke her mind into more manageable parts, since she fought so hard against the ancient's will she became nothing more than a drone fit enough to sire a son.

His father was the most powerful mind in the great citadel where the most powerful bloods had mixed. His mind could bend anyone and anything to his will and move mountains. And even if he couldn't really move mountains he could make you see the mountains move as gracefully through the skies as a bird. Like anyone in his culture he thought that everything to do with flesh was repulsive to him and his mind was also bent near to breaking. He was smart enough not to fight the force that was the origin of his powers. He had been able to overcome his resentment for fleshly things in time to keep his mind, the thing keeping his body from dying. He was as old as a Azarathian could be and his body would have been unable to produce the sperm needed to conceive a child without the demon's interference. His body was entwined with the demon and they were one. The demon had invested too much of his own essence into this world to let his achievements go down the drain like this. The people of this planet were one or two steps away from being able to carry his mind. It wanted to create its own race, a race that could control and absorb the world around them, and a race that could rule over all of the things of this infinite galaxy.

The purpose of all of it was unclear to Du'grel, but he thought that his father had seen and created too much life and had started to envy the things that he played with.

Du'grel thought that he had tampered with the Azarathians to pass his flame down to a new generation. His flame could destroy and create things, not to rearrange matter, to create it out of nothing. His power was as close to a real divine power anything could be. He was a creator when any other of his kind were destroyers.

The demon wanted to have a child, an heir.

"Well, I guess you got what you wished for, father..." Du'grel spoke into the wind as he looked out into the horizon. He could see an village with exactly 137 people. Within two minutes he knew their deepest and darkest secrets. "But there is also my mother's legacy."

He knew what he was now, but still he was confused. His father had been a timeless demon overlord and his mother had been a part of an ancient Azarathian tribe with extraordinary eyes. He had the demon's power and hunger for knowledge and power, but still he had his mother's eyes and the ability to see and therefore understand the world around him. Through the creative power that his father had given him he was able to copy and be whatever he saw.

He could make people agree with him on anything or make them do anything he wanted. He could make them see horrible things that weren't really there. He also had the ability to create matter or pure energy without converting it from anything. His powers seemed limitless.

They might have been just as impressive as his father's almost omnipotent power if he hadn't spent that many centuries beneath that lake. His father had meant for him to be the embodiment of the power he had endued the planet with. Du'grel was conceived and he grew within his mother until the time of his birth was at hand. His father had drained his own essence into him during his development and the newborn was almost entirely made out of the high-energy plasma that the ancient demon was. Expect his eyes. He had his mother's eyes and they shone through out into the world and they were the part of him that gave him the ability to control his energy-based body. They gave him an understanding on the raging energy inside him and thus gave him a way to control it. At least to keep it at bay if not to control it.

Just two days after his birth Trigon arrived on Azarath. He crashed down on the citadel and consumed the power in the minds of the people living there. His powers had grown since the last time he had encountered Du'grel's father and the ruling demon overlord had weakened himself too much while playing with Azarathians. His power was now endued into the planet and Trigon had learned how to absorb it and use it.

Du'grel knew that his father had lost the battle, but he also knew that Trigon was not able to absorb his father's power unto himself. Du'grel's body was hungry for power and he absorbed the power dormant in the planet. He grew stronger and stronger with each passing day. He would have been as strong as his father, but faith intertwined.

His mother's mind had been given the task to keep him safe and make sure that he was okay. He did well for the duration of two weeks, since she could see her pursuers and knew what way was safe. She fed his body and kept him safe, but motherly love was something that this shell of a warrior was not capable of. She ran from Trigon's army and from her old tribe. Trigon's army was after Du'grel because of the power growing inside him and his mother's tribesmen were after him because he was a freak of nature. An abomination that had been spawned from the unholy union between their once proud warrior and the ancient evil that had influenced their peoples evolution for hundreds of generations.

Her mother did well for two weeks and spent most of that time running and feeding him rather than sleeping. She was exhausted and even her eyes started to blur and lose focus. She still kept on running and surviving, but then she made one wrong step.

It had been raining and the mountain trails leading out of the citadel were slippery and any sane person would have slowed down and tried to hide. There were some things that even her tribe's eyes couldn't look through and she knew about these better than anyone. At least she used to. Instead, she kept on running and eventually she slipped on a slippery rock covered with moss. She did not care about her own safety and only tried to keep the baby she was carrying safe. She rolled down a steep hill and kept her body in between the rocks and the baby.

Du'grel remembered how he had screamed at the top of his lungs when he heard his mother's bones being crushed against the rocks. His mind was more developed than a normal baby's would be because his father's legacy and was aware that his mother would not get up when she slammed to a stop on the base of a large rock. Her warm blood flowed on him and he could see how her mother's soul faded and flew away. He had never been so afraid and he couldn't fight back when her mother's tribe caught up to them. They saw her mother's shattered corpse and they saw him covered in blood and screaming, but still unharmed. They hated his father so much for the things he had done that they convinced them selves that Du'grel had caused his mother's injuries. He was a demon after all and what could a demon do, but kill and cause pain. Demons were known to enjoy bloodshed and chaos. They knew that their rail-guns couldn't hurt the half-breed, so they had brought a priest with them from the great citadel.

She was a great spell-caster, part of a tribe that concentrated solely on spells and enchanting. No mind tricks, just a strong will and magical words that could control the world around them. She told them to carry him to a nearby lake. She knew of a powerful spell that was able to trap the half-breeds power.

The priestess found the lake easily with the help of the tribe's all seeing eyes and they marched right to the lake's shore. The priestess told them to wait while she enchanted the waters to trap the unholy creature. The unholy creature in question had found another ability inside itself and froze as many of its captors in a desperate attempt to gain freedom. Without his mother there Du'grel had started to collect things from the minds around him and had started to comprehend its own situation. If you would compare his mental growth to a human child he would have been in the mental maturity of a very smart seven year old, old enough to fight for their life if needed.

Still, his body was just an infants and he hadn't even learned how to crawl, so his desperate attack didn't help him at all. It just infuriated the priest and she summoned an aura of fire to cover her to counter the cold Du'grel had created. She walked over to the infant that only started to scream louder as it was out of tricks. He hadn't learned the Azarathian language and pleaded without words using telepathy. The priestess didn't listen to these wordless pleas, since she thought that they were just lies from a purely evil abomination.

She was the one that threw Du'grel into that lake. She grabbed his foot and tossed him into the lake. The lake immediately started to freeze over, because Du'grel was still draining the area surrounding him from any warmth. He sank to the bottom in a shell of ice. Even though he was thrown in a lake he didn't drown, he died out of starvation. He was in the bottom of a lake, but his half-demon physiology allowed him to extract oxygen from the water around him. Cold didn't bother him either since he was the one draining the warmth out of the water. Still, for his body to survive he needed his mother's breast milk. He was an infant after all. He couldn't melt his way out if he would have known how, since the priestess's spell stopped the waters from melting.

Eventually his body died and he survived by turning into a cold fire that he was now. There was enough power inside him that some part of him could keep on existing. His father had also left him the ability to drain the planet's energy and absorb it as a part of the flame. He stayed this way for thousands, maybe even millions of years. He did not know. His mind had dissipated into the fire after the first hundred years. Only a cold rage was left of his old self and Du'grel was determined to satisfy that hunger for power and revenge inside him.

"**Cassandra Roth!" **A voice billowed from the back of Du'grel's mind. It had always been there with him. Affecting his every decision, but its only purpose before tonight had been just to cause pain to every one around Du'grel. It wanted to hurt and kill so desperately and Du'grel had not even been aware of it. Now it had a purpose, or at least it had someone to focus its anger towards. The priestess that had thrown him into the lake had been called Cassandra Roth. She was one of Raven's ancestors and she had seemingly been named after her. This was enough of a reason for the ancient part of Du'grel to direct his revenge on her. It still had to work around the spell on the runes printed on Du'grel's body, but they only stopped him from lying, disobeying or directly hurting Raven.

An undeniably evil smirk spread on his features. There were so many things he could do to hurt her within these limitations. That was what he wanted to do now: hurt her. Even though he was forced to serve and protect her, still he could hurt her. He just had to keep thinking that "hurting" Raven was causing bodily harm or allowing it.

He was going to have fun. First he had to get out of this world though. He knew now that his ability to jump from place to another without traveling the space between was based on his father's ability to break the boundaries of reality and step out of it. He seemed to have refined this gift for him to be able to step into other worlds. He glanced at the several trouts surrounding him. He also seemed to have the amazing ability to summon common trouts to aid him in battle.

Hurray for him… He really should do something about these damn trouts. They didn't seem to bother him, but they were starting to get annoying. But why trouts of all the things his power could conjure? He had spent an eternity in a lake so maybe trouts were just… familiar? No, that's fucking idiotic. There had to be some other explanation. He just didn't know it yet. Maybe his power just overflowed because of the amounts of energy he had been absorbing? He had Superman's ability to convert the sun's energy to tremendous amounts of power, Flash's speed, Stargirl's energy, Slade's intellect and… Was that it? How many people had he killed? How many were trapped inside his flame? He needed them all if to ever accomplish his goal.

And that was? He knew that it had something to do with Raven, but the reason for his obsession for power had stayed in his sub-conscious until now. Even now, when he was aware of his whole mind, that goal was still a little unclear. At least now he knew that he was working to reach some goal and not just to be bigger and better. That kind of egoistical thinking sickened him. He only wanted to have a clear sky above him and be as far away from water as possible. Being trapped inside a lake for thousands and thousands of years traumatized you pretty thoroughly. He was terrified of water and tight spaces. Taking a shower would be absolutely terrifying for him. He probably would just blow up the whole building the shower was located in.

Still he had gone into a small shower booth to save Jinx… He had to wonder if his assumptions about his motivations in this matter were correct. He had forgotten that this part of him was in his mind and these memories he had could all be a lie.

Only thing he did know for sure was this rage burning inside him. He wanted to hurt Raven in so many ways. He hated Raven just for the actions of one of her ancestors. He knew that his anger was misdirected, but he had to vent some of this anger somewhere before he lost control. He could only hope that it would at least tone down after he was done with Raven.

Now he just had to figure out how to get out of this foreign world.

"**Kill them." **Another Du'grel suggested next to him. Du'grel wasn't really surprised.

"Astral projection. You are not real. You only tricked my mind to create an image that I could talk to." Du'grel stated to himself "How would that help me?"

"**They are the center of this world. You can feel how reality warps around them and plays with them. If you kill any of them, the world will be off-balance and you will have a chance to create a large enough rip to jump into our own world."**

Du'grel thought about this for quite some time. His other stayed silent next to him; waiting was something he was painfully familiar with. He could wait for a couple of minutes.

"… If you're such a big part of me why don't you just take over and kill then on your own? You broke the rune keeping you under control and you should be able to do that now. Stiil I am in control." Du'grel got up and paced a few inches off the ground in front of his mirror image. He didn't like to have sand in his shoes. His other side just looked out into the distance, without any sign of any emotion. Du'grel was glad that he felt infuriated by his calm behavior. He could feel after all!

"**True, I have broken some of the chains holding me down, but you had failed to comprehend what I am. I am not just pure cold hate or an unsatisfied hunger for revenge. I want nothing more than to rip Raven to pieces, but I am more than a festering wound in your soul. I am the reason for your immortality. I am that never dying energy that is not bound by space or time. Some other time I might have been something else, but now I am only pure power with a mere trace of a mind."**

A satisfied smirk spread across Du'grel's face. He hadn't answered the question! The truth was that Du'grel was the one in control and he was just a bickering –

His hand exploded and the pieces splattered on the sand. He lost his concentration and fell on the sand and rolled down the dyne. The small grains of sand filling his rapidly healing wounds caused him to almost pass out from the pain. They stayed under his skin when it healed and tore the wounds open again and again when new tissue formed to form a new hand.

Almost. Something in the back of his mind kept him awake to feel every second of the pain.

"**Wrong. I am the one in control and you only exist because I am unable to use your body. You will do what you are told exactly as you are told or I will have to think of more painful ways to discipline you."**

Du'grel had never felt such agony and couldn't answer. He could only whine and scream when he lay there holding the bloody stump that had been his left hand just a mere minute ago. He held it up so that more grains of sand would not cause him more pain. His sensations of were usually dulled by his regenerative tendencies, but now they were working against him and the sickening pain was too much for him. He wondered if this dark part of him had somehow made him to come here, to a place where it could cause him this kind of pain.

"**I am inside you. I am you. You cannot hide your thoughts from me and I can rip your body apart from the inside if I wish. The pain you are feeling now cannot even compare to what I can cause you. Now do you understand your place?" **Its physical image had disappeared and it was now talking directly into Du'grel's mind. He felt its smothering presence and found it hard to breath and to think. His spirit was almost crushed under the weight of the cold fury. It had had thousand of years to brood over its faith and now it had something more than just a feeling, it was a living, breathing thing.

"I understand! I understand, but does it have to be one of them? I happen to like them and would not like to kill any of them." Du'grel knew that this was a fight he could not win right now and had no other choice but to obey. He waited for his hand to heal and then slowly stood up. He was covered in sweat and he felt sick, but he knew that it would pass. His was quick to heal after all.

"**Hmm… There are others like them in this world. Any of them will do, but it would be more sure if you were to kill one of those two." **It was referring to Keiichi and Belldandy. Reality seemed to warp the most around them.

"I already have a limited understanding of this world. Even one of the smallest warp points will suffice." Du'grel was not that sure about this and it would be more sure just to kill one of the goddesses or Keiichi, but he really didn't want to.

"**Hmph! Fine. Kill Mara then. You have no emotional ties with her and it would only help the goddesses. She is a nuisance to them. You have nothing against killing her, do you?" **Its words were technically a question, but the way it said it left no room for judgement. He was forced to kill Mara. Du'grel had nothing against Mara, but he didn't really get a really appeasing image of her from the goddess's memories. She was always causing trouble, so they would probably be better off without her.

At least that was what he was trying to convince himself to believe. He really didn't want to do this. He did not like killing that much.

"**At least that is what you are trying to convince yourself to believe." **A cruel voice whispered from the darkest corner of his mind. He was going to snap something back, but couldn't deny the truth behind its cruel words. He didn't enjoy killing, but he did like to hurt and manipulate people. Killing wasn't that repulsive either. He hoped that these traits had came with Slade's intellect.

He shimmered away after finding Mara's energy imprint. Even if he didn't want ot admit it, the thrill of the hunt was making his blood boil

He appeared right where he wanted. He was standing right behind Mara, just one step and he could snap her neck and be done with it. He hesitated and shuffled his feet. Mara turned to look at him in the eye. The look of surprise on her face was priceless! Du'grel grabbed her neck and rose her off the floor before she could say anything. This was bad enough as it was and he didn't want to remember her last words. She was able to make a little whine while trying to pry his hand off her neck. Du'grel squeezed harder. He knew that she couldn't break his grasp.

"Shut up! Just shut up and it will be over soon. Don't try to talk." There had been surprise in her eyes at first, but they were wide from horror now and her whole aura was pleading for him to stop; for him to spare her.

He squeezed harder. Mara's neck started to creak. He could hear how his grip was forcing her spine to grind together. "This would have been so much easier if you would not have noticed me. It would have been quick, but you forced me to this!" Mara had almost stopped moving already, but her hands were still trying to pry his hands off of her neck. He squeezed as hard as he could, but Mara's neck only creaked a little louder and the bones grinded against each other.

"**Can't you do anything right? I'll show you how it's done!" **Du'grel felt how his hand opened and dropped Mara to the floor. She desperately started gasping for breath. He saw through his own eyes how he placed his right foot on her chest.

"**Violence does not belong in this world…" **He saw how his own hands grabbed the sides of her head. There were long and sharp claws growing out of the tips of his fingers. The ones on his thumbs dug through her cheeks and the rest dug into her skull. She was unable to scream anymore when blood filled her mouth. She couldn't even cough it out so her lungs started filling with blood.

"… **The more violent…" **Du'grel felt how his lips curved to show his needle-like fangs. The muscles on his arms flexed and he started pulling her head.

"… **Gruesome and bloody her death is…" **He flexed the muscles on his back and started pulling his shoulders back. Mara gasped in one last breath and started screaming. Du'grel felt how his foot pressed harder on her chest and drove all the air out of her lungs. Still she kept on screaming. Du'grel could see her thoughts and they hurt him more than any material thing ever could. _Why? _Was the only thing that was going through her mind right now, other than the blinding pain and the fear of death. Her spine popped several times and her neck stretched as Du'grel pulled slowly. She cried blood and her ears bled, because of the pressure that Du'grel's grip caused in her brain. Her neck turned black when the arteries in her neck ripped and the blood flooded beneath her skin. Still she was still aware and conscious. It might have been because she was a demoness, but Du'grel was sure that the thing born from hate inside him was keeping her alive, just so she would suffer.

"… **The bigger our chance is to get back into our world and end the Roth family." **Du'grel felt how his whole body straightened and he yanked his hands up above his head. There was a sickening crunch and the thing inside him made his body to howl in excitement. After that it lost the grip on his body or it just left it on it's own. Du'grel was drenched in Mara's blood. He fell to his knees and the howl of excitement turned into a high-pitched wail. He kept staring at Mara's severed head in his hands. He didn't want to believe that they were his hands that had caused it.

He dropped Mara's head and crawled as far away from it as he could. He was crawling on his stomach and he smelled Mara's blood all around him and on his clothes. He turned when he hit the wall. He thought that if he would turn his back on Mara she would rise up and take her revenge. Seeing her body and the severed head also terrified him beyond belief and he could at least take comfort in knowing that he was not a complete monster. He still didn't cry though, but the wailing had not stopped. The air around him seemed to shimmer when his mind vibrated the molecules to create the sound.

"I am so sorry…" He felt how reality was trained around him and eventually a small crack appeared in the fabric of this world. He ran through without hesitating at all. He could not do anything for Mara or for anyone else in this world anymore.

He did forget to bring Skuld her ice cream. This thought caused him to hesitate just beyond the threshold of stepping into the space between worlds. He was not the one to break any promises. And he liked Skuld. He had played with her like he had played with Jinx, but was she just a substitute for Jinx's soothing effect on his powers? He had felt the urge to play with her because of her innocence and youth. She also had some of that fiery spirit that he appreciated in Jinx. He smiled warmly when he thought about Jinx. He really did like her, but he was worried if he had broken her.

He took one step back from the doorway, towards the rip of reality that lead to the goddesses' world. He would just drop off the ice cream he had promised and then he would come back here and get back to his own world. He turned around and took one more step.

"**Are you doing this because of the promise you made or because you are afraid to go back to that world where they hate you for what you had done? What I had done. Think carefully before stepping through either of these gateways. Do you want to gain your freedom from me and Raven or do you want to fulfill a promise that you made to a kid you are not likely to even see again? Think carefully, or I'll think for you."**

Du'grel stopped. He hated this dark part of him so much, but it was also right. He was just about to run from facing the pissed off superheroes back in his own world. Not a bad idea in theory, but delaying it any further would not help at all.

He turned back slowly and took the two steps needed to get into the space between worlds. Immediately when he stepped into the emptiness he felt how his spirit was drawn to his original body in his own world.


	10. Chapter 10

**Hi there, people! It has already advanced into the tenth chapter and it is going to eat my arm if nothing is. Okay, lets now talk about this chapter here...**

**Or not. I am sorry if some of you don't like that I haven't been able to splip in that much of comedy, but the story really would seem forced if trout would be appearing out of thin air! Uhm... Forget I said anything...**

**Flame me, people, please!**

**Crazy Laughter**

* * *

**Chapter 10**

"Come on, Timid! Stop it already, I need my beauty sleep!" Happy tried to squirm out from under Timid's naked body. Timid only kept on pushing her down on the mattress. When Happy kept on squirming she rolled off her and sat up on the bed.

"Do you really hate me that much?" She asked desperately while her eyes welled up. "I'm not beautiful enough! I don't deserve you!" Timid forgot all about her efforts trying to keep Happy still long enough so that she could fuck her. She curled up into a small ball and started crying quietly.

Happy only sighed deeply and dragged the curled up girl next to her. This was a familiar routine to her. She started by pressing herself against her other self's back and by starting to whisper soothing calming words in her ear. "Now, now, don't be like that, Timid. You know that I love you more than anything." This was part of a usual routine that usually led to them both tiring each other out and passing out with wide grins on their faces.

Timid was supposed to ask Happy did she think she was ugly, but they were interrupted by Excited running in and jumping around their bed. It took about two minutes and several blunt objects thrown in her direction to get her to calm down enough to tell them why did she interrupt them.

"You know what! You know what! YOU KNOW WHAT?!" She was about jump up again and start running around, but Timid hit her with a trout to shut her up. She looked at the random trout in her hand and guessed why Excited was so… well, excited.

"He's back then? Du'grel is back again? What does she want now?" Timid had always been suspicious about the white-haired stranger, but he had given her Happy, so she had kept her thoughts to herself. She was happier that she had ever been with Happy as her lover and felt that any price that Du'grel might ask for this happiness wouldn't be too high.

Still, she had treated this day.

Excited jumped up after she noticed that Timid was too deep in her thoughts to hit her with the trout again. "Du'grel is back! He's back, He's back! He's back I tell ya!" Excited ran around Happy's and Timid's shared room and then ran out when she accidentally found the doorway. Happy was quick to follow.

"Yay! He's back! Come on, Timid, or you'll miss out on all the fun! Wait up Excited!" Happy's cheery voice disappeared when she passed through one of those magical portals that were the primary means of transportation inside Raven's mind. She was left alone with her thoughts. All alone, just like she had been before Du'grel and the turmoil he had caused inside Raven's mind. She owed him way more than she would have liked, but she would gladly suffer the consequences.

She dropped the trout on the floor and started to look for her clothes. She found her leotard and was pulling it on herself when she realized something.

_Happy didn't look for her leotard before running out there…_ She sighed just as deeply as Happy had just a moment ago and pulled her leotard all the way up. She knew that Happy would be too impatient to put on her own pink leotard, so she just grabbed her cloak and ran out to catch up with her. She could only smile lovingly. This was so like her. These kinds of things were why she loved her so much.

She could only hope that this gathering wouldn't turn out into the massive orgy it had last time.

He was relaxing on a floating piece of rock and watched when the different sides of Raven gathered on the large field below him. They were all glad to see him. He had visited Raven's mind only five times, but every time he had made them all scream out of pure pleasure. Now they would do anything he asked them to. He had successfully and indirectly subdued Raven's mind into his control.

He snickered and a pair of needle-like fangs peeked out of his mouth. Whatever he did he couldn't get them to go away for good. He also felt like he didn't need to blink anymore. It was also easier to control his flame, so he thought that the dragon was sticking on him.

There was nothing bad in being a dragon anyways. His identity as a demonic half-breed had burned away during his captivity and the only other race that could control a fire as intense as his that he knew of were the dragons. Fire ran in their veins and was a natural part of their physiology. This meant that Du'grel wouldn't be forced to keep his body from exploding into flames when the fire would be a part of his body.

And he couldn't forget the way Jinx liked dragons. Every one in this world thought that he had always been a dragon and had only came to join the Teen Titans to mess with Raven's head. That was partly true but he was not really aware of his intentions at the time and he truly had wanted to be a hero earlier. That seemed so naïve now when he knew what had been inside him all this time.

His thoughts were interrupted by an irritated yell from the field below. "Are you coming down or not, you fucking dimwit?! We would like to splatter our juices on each others faces already!" There was no way to know who it was by her voice, but he would have to say that it had probably been Rude. He heard how someone smacked her on the back of her head and hissed dangerously "Shut up already!" By the annoying all-knowing tone in the voice he would have to say that it was Intelligence. She sounded like a British snob.

Yeah, it had definitely been Rude. Intelligence and Rude had hooked up after his last official visit, he had heard this from Lust. She was always trying to topple him and fuck his brains out, but she was a reliable source of information if he didn't want anyone else to know about his visit. Everyone tried to stay as far away from Lust whenever possible. Now, things had changed, but still they only approached her when they wanted to borrow some sex toy from her.

He sat up and looked down on the field. He saw that most of them were there looking up at him. He saw how Happy ran around completely naked, too excited to notice. He laughed out loud when he saw a panting Timid running after her carrying her pink cloak in her hand. No one else seemed to mind that Happy was naked. They all looked exactly the same, so seeing one of them naked didn't really matter to most of them. With the exception of Lust that was lurking around, ready to jump on the naked Happy when she ran by her hiding spot. Sarcastic was standing next to her in a spiked doggie collar. She looked totally submissive and was squirming like something was bothering her. Knowing Lust's almost sadistic nature Du'grel was pretty sure that she had a vibrator or two stuffed inside her.

Du'grel shook his head to clear it from the images rushing past his eyes. He wasn't sure if they were created by his imagination or did he pick them up from someone's mind. He stood up and jumped down to the awaiting group of Ravens.

"About time, smutfuck!" Rude cheerily put in and punched Intelligence in the gut before she was able to slap her again. Du'grel wondered which one of them really was the dominating one in their relationship. Intelligence fell to her knees holding her stomach. "Teaches you not to slap me in front of everyone!" She hissed just as dangerously at Intelligence as she had hissed at her.

"Yes, it does. Next time I'll stab you instead!" Intelligence growled at the orange robed Rude. Rude only tapped her head as if she were a child.

"Sure you will. No one is doubting you, sweet cheeks." After Rude said this Intelligence was clearly going to say something, but Rude made sure she would not get the last word by kissing her passionately on the lips. She still looked like she was going to talk back when Rude separated to draw breath. Rude was determined to get the last word, so she knocked her down on the ground and kissed her again. Her right hand started rubbing her breasts and the left hand started to slowly slither up and down her inner thigh. Intelligence tried to push her away, but her hand only ended up massaging Rude's breasts and got her even more excited. Intelligence was either embarrassed to do this in front of everyone, or she was just trying to get on top. Either way: She was failing miserably.

Rude slapped her hand on Intelligence's thigh. Intelligence gasped and twitched. Rude was teasing her. She hadn't touched her snatch once, but the crotch of Intelligence's leotard was already moist. When Rude moved down her neck and bit her just after only lightly pressing her lips on her neck. She moaned and squirmed under Rude. Rude was enjoying her rare chance to be in control, so she was furious when Du'grel kicked the two of them apart. He didn't hold back at all and Rude would have dropped out of the large floating piece of rock where they had gathered if Lust hadn't intervened.

"Don't even think about it!" She yelled just before throwing a confused Sarcastic after Rude. She thought that Rude was trying get away from her. "Catch her, you bitch!" Sarcastic was completely in Lust's control after being in her dungeon for weeks and flew after Rude when Lust was still shouting her command. When she was able to grab Rude's cloak she suffered from the other side effect of being in Lust's infamous dungeon. She couldn't control her powers as well anymore and the vibrators Lust had stuck inside her weren't helping either. She found herself falling out of the edge of the rock with Rude. Maybe she could finally get away from Lust and take a good long deep breath. Meditate and then try not to let Lust find her.

These dreams were shattered when she felt a powerful yank around her neck and heard Lust's husky voice telling her not to try and escape. She was the only one of the different sides of Raven that didn't sound like Raven. Her voice was exactly as she was: hungry for a good fucking. Her voice might have become like that because of all the dildos she deep throated for fun. They might have poked her throat so much that her voice changed like that.

Anyways, Sarcastic and all the other Ravens felt a shiver run up their back when they heard her voice. It was like magic. Her voice had changed around the time Du'grel visited the first time and this would have made the different coloured Ravens stop and think if they weren't so busy fucking each other.

"That is nice and all, but there will be time for that later. I have something I need you to do for me. I need your undivided attention for a second. If anyone of you was thinking of doing what these two were doing…" He looked at each one of them in the eye with his own cold fire burning behind his piercing eyes. "You should remind yourselves that I could take away what I had given you."

The anxious whispering and the muffled giggles when many of the Ravens were making out stopped instantly after Du'grel's words. Every single one of them had made some kind of deal with Du'grel. Some of them had asked for their love to be returned, some had simply hoped to have someone to love and some had hoped to be able to turn anyone on with just a word. Du'grel had set them up with each other and they all were happier than ever. He had given them this happiness and they were terrified of the chance that it could all end.

Du'grel had their undivided attention.

Du'grel walked into the crowd of Ravens and allowed them to surround him. He looked at every single one of them in turn. Lust got the idea and dragged Rude into the circle for Du'grel to be able to look at her. Sarcastic followed her with her eyes cast down wards.

Du'grel stopped when he looked at Sarcastic. He turned his eyes to Lust. "Please take those things out of her. She has to hear what I am about to say and to be able do what I ask of her." He turned his back to her and continued to inspect the row of Ravens. They all were feeling exactly what he wanted them to be feeling. They were afraid of the chance that they could lose the happiness he had given them. They would do anything to protect it.

Perfect.

Du'grel walked into the centre of the circle of Ravens after nodding to Lust, who had two ten-inch dildos in her hands. The other one had short-circuited and was still vibrating in her hand. She was about to make Sarcastic lick them clean when Du'grel shot a murderous look in her direction. She quickly hid the vibrators in her cloak. When she realized she was still making a steady humming sound she threw the malfunctioning dildo at a mysterious flying trout.

"Now when all distractions are gone I ask you to listen to me very carefully. I have given you all favours and gifts you have grown to appreciate. I had not asked anything in return for them…" He let the message in his sentence sink in to the even slowest of them before continuing. "That is until now. What I need you to do is…"

"_Du'grel, wake up. I command you to wake up and open your eyes." _The words were not yelled, but they still made the earth rumble and them all to stumble and fall. The voice was familiar to each and every one of them. It was Raven.

She didn't know she was speaking into her own mind, but the splitting headache that she got right after she spoke the words puzzled her. Batman had called Robin shortly after Du'grel's attack. He didn't know about Du'grel's history with the Titans, but he only called Robin because Du'grel was in his age group and therefore fell within his domain, not the Justice Leagues. He was very shocked when he heard the story behind Du'grel. He yelled at Robin for a good 30 minutes, because he didn't even think of letting the Justice League know about a super-powered villain that could seemingly teleport anywhere he wanted.

Robin was just as shocked when he heard about what Du'grel had done up in the tower. He had had a feeling that he was a little unstable. But he tore Flash to pieces and then threw the charred remains at Supergirl. He was more than a little unstable by the looks of things. He was a raging psychopath. They were ordered to stand in the roof of the tower for them to teleport them up there. They needed to have a talk with them.

The first questions they made were about Du'grel. They wanted to know everything about the nature of his powers and if any of them knew of a way to counter them. They realized that they knew very little about Du'grel's powers that he didn't tell them himself. They only knew that his powers were hard to control and he had many. They also knew that he had been able to beat all of them without even breaking a sweat.

In other words: Exactly what he wanted them to know. They just knew that he was more powerful than them and couldn't trust their own judgement when they thought about the extent of his powers.

"Damn it! How come I didn't see this coming? How could he fool me so easily?" Robin raged and hit his hands on the steel table. He was beating himself up for something he couldn't really control or prevent as usual.

"You told us that he could affect your opinions of him. You stated quite bluntly that he was a powerful telepath if nothing more. You also thought that he could control energy in any of its forms and drained it from around him." Jauhn stated calmly.

"Then you told us that you can't be sure of that because he could affect your minds so easily. It all might have just been a trick. You can't know if he fooled you or not and in what way. Even your own telepath said that she didn't notice him in her head until he wanted her to." Shayera said in a dangerous tone while pacing behind Jauhn. She was hitting her mace on her palm every time she turned and you couldn't know if it was just a nervous gesture or if she wanted to hit Robin with it. These adolescent superheroes couldn't tell them anything they didn't know already. She suddenly stopped pacing when her thoughts trailed back to the adolescent team's telepath.

"Her name is Raven, right?" She suddenly jumped in front of Robin and her mace was just a few inches away from his face. It crackled with white sparks of energy because of her agitated state.

"Y-yes, it is: Cassandra Raven Roth. She was born on Azarath to a priestess of Talos, which is the main religion of her home world. She is the daughter of Trigon the terrible and – " Robin stopped talking when he noticed that Shayera was not listening to him anymore. She was trying to remember the whisper she had heard when she was surrounded by that crimson flame.

"Raven… Yes, it did sound more like a name. You said earlier that this Du'grel was unable to disobey her. He did everything she told him to do." Shayera wasn't asking Robin to confirm her words. Actually she had left the room even before finishing her sentence. She flew three doors down and slammed into the room were Wonder Woman was questioning Raven.

She saw them making out on the table.

"WHAT THE –" She blinked and saw them sitting across each other on other sides of the table. Raven was hiding in her cloak and Wonder Woman was leaning back on her chair with her arms crossed. This made her breast almost pop out of her uniform. They were both looking at her in surprise. "Huh? Weren't you just… I mean… What just happened?" She held onto her mace tighter, as she felt like something was playing with her mind. If it was induced by magic, her mace would probably stop it before it could get too deep to cause anything.

But she knew that in battle even that second that she had seen something that wasn't there would be crucial. If something had found a way into her mind she would be in trouble.

"Forget that I said anything! You!" She pointed her mace at Raven. She almost fell of her chair. _Did she notice_, she thought. Her attention had been in Wonder Woman's cleavage. She had stumbled in almost every one of her words and blushed furiously when Wonder Woman even looked at her. She prayed that she hadn't noticed she had been looking at her amazing breast the whole time she was talking to her. It didn't help that Wonder Woman lost her temper several times while interrogating the bewildered Raven. She usually leaned in across the table, giving the desperate Raven even more reason to blush furiously.

"You're coming with me!" Shayera stormed out of the room and Raven ran out of the room, away from the Amazonian princess. Raven ran to catch up with Shayera and then stayed a couple of steps behind her. Where she had a perfect view of Shayera's ass.

_My god, she has the ass of an angel, _a voice in Raven's head whispered.

"What was that?" Shayera asked and stopped. She turned to look at the blushing Raven. Her mouth was hanging open from shock. _Did I say that out loud? My god, my god, what to do? _

"Uhm… Eh… The thing is… I just… Well…" Raven had never felt so embarrassed and the wall next to her was engulfed in her dark aura and the 5-inch metal alloy started twisting and turning like it was made out of clay. When she noticed this she immediately started saying her mantra "Azarath, methrion, zynthos… Azarath, methrion, zynthos…" _And don't forget Wonder Woman's unbelievable breasts_, a husky voice from deep inside her whispered. She yelped in surprise when an image of Wonder Woman naked and moaning in her bed filled her mind. The whole corridor they were walking on was engulfed in her aura and the walls started closing in on them.

Shayera knew that she couldn't fly them out of there in time and she had to think fast. She hit Raven on her right temple with her mace, careful not to put too much force in the strike. Raven was knocked unconscious and the walls stopped trying to crush them.

Shayera carried her back to Jauhn, so that the martian could check that she hadn't hurt her too much.

After Jauhn concluded that Raven would not die, Shayera called the rest of the Titans and the remaining members of the founding members of the Justice League. She told them about her idea about waking and controlling Du'grel with Raven.

_So, this was how they ended up in this situation. They figured it out sooner than I thought. I'll have to break out of these chains._

"Open your eyes and look at me." Raven's voice made the runes on his body burn and forced his eyes open. He looked up into Raven's eyes and was pleased see that all of them flinched under his gaze. He also felt how the blood soaked coat appeared on him. Mara's blood appeared to cover his face as well. He licked his lips slowly, like he was savouring the taste. Du'grel did like the taste of blood, but the memories he had of how the blood got on him almost made him gag. Mara didn't deserve such a fate.

"Wish you wouldn't have woken me so early. I was having the best dream." His lips curved to an evil smirk. The pair of needle-like fangs that was now a permanent part of his teeth peeked out and blood trickled down from his face and down the thin fang. His tongue slithered out slowly and slowly licked his upper lip clean. Then he growled so deeply that the glass between them started to ring and shake in its frames. He liked using sound, since it was relatively easy to produce and control. Short bursts of kinetic energy released in the air around him could shatter every kind of material he could make the vibrations resonate with: Simple, but yet so destructive.

He kept acting like he was a rabid animal and trashed around in his chains. He wanted to see if they had figured out how to stop him from shimmering. He visualized his right hand out of the chains and then took that small step out of this world and then felt how he was rushed back in.

But now his right hand was free. He grabbed the chain so that it would still look like his right hand was chained. He knew now that he could escape when he wanted and that was enough. He calmed down before Raven could order him to do so.

"Did you wake me for a reason or did you just miss me?" Du'grel hissed at Raven while looking deep in her eyes. He felt how she started to drown in them and saw how her eyes looked somewhere far, far away. He was not hurting her in any way, so his runes didn't acknowledge themselves. The other ones around could only slow him, but Raven could make him stop with just one word.

"**Sleep." **He ordered when he thought that Raven had sunken deep enough in his eyes. He saw how Raven's eyes closed and she started to sway and Beast Boy had to support her, but she refused to go to sleep. She held on to consciousness when Du'grel finally shimmered out of his chains. He was sure that she was asleep already and paid no attention to the people around her. They could only slow him down if they got in the way. He didn't want to hurt them, but if it would come to that he would not hesitate to do what ever it takes, if that meant hurting her friends; tough luck.

He found that they had not found a way to stop him from getting out of his chains, but he thought that if he tried to shimmer out of the station the step he took would throw him back out into another world and would leave this body here. He could be thrown back into the room where he had left Mara's headless body.

He really did not want that to happen. He jumped down on the floor and heard how the heroes on the other side of the glass kept on shouting at him. The winged woman called Shayera or Hawkgirl was banging on the villain-proof glass with her mace. He turned away when he saw that a crack started to creep out from the centre of the glass. He turned his eyes to the walls, looking for an imperfection in the barricade of high-density metal alloys. He found ten. He could just blow the wall up, but the explosion could hurt Raven.

He spread his fingers and concentrated to create a beam of pure heat out of every one of his fingers. This was the hardest part about using his creative power. He could create any kind of energy from nothing, but directing so that it wouldn't just come out as an explosion of energy was hard. It took his full attention every single time. His finger started to glow faintly when he carefully created twelve concentrations of heat on the tips of his fingers. Something that looked like melted white-hot steel seeped out from under his fingernails and formed into twelve small spheres. They were still in his complete control, but that would change when he sent them away. They would go straight through the wall, but after they penetrated the metals they would be unstable and release all of their energy into the space around them. The flames would probably burn a couple of more walls completely and definitely kill anyone caught in them.

He sent surges of energy to the tips of his fingers and the spheres were launched at the wall. There was only a quiet hiss when they passed through the metal, but there was a gigantic boom right after they passed through the wall and it exploded inwards. The cell they had placed him in was engulfed in flames and they hid him from The Teen Titans and the other heroes looking through the glass. He heard how the glass shattered from the heat and saw when that winged woman was knocked back and her wings caught on fire. He didn't notice the snicker spreading on his face. He walked through the fire when it raged around him. He liked fire. It might have been because it was the opposite of ice, the thing he treated most. If a flame was hot enough water would only feed it when it broke down to hydrogen and oxygen, both being extremely flammable.

The flames died when they ran out of oxygen and Du'grel saw that he had been placed deep inside the Watchtower. If he would continue to soldier on looking as himself he would most definitely be surrounded by pissed off superheroes within minutes. He had to borrow someone's identity, since a stranger would be also caught without question. He set his gaze to read the minds on the station. It was still too hot where he was standing for anyone to come and bother him, so he concentrated on finding a way out.

He scanned every one of the superheroes on the station, but found that they were monitored too closely for him to be able to pose as one of them without being caught. He had to pose as one of the workers then. They were also monitored more closely than usual, since they knew that he was a shape shifter. He had to look for several minutes before he found a bulletproof identity.

John O'Doyle was fucking another co-worker in a cleaning closet, where there were no cameras, so it wouldn't be detected if Du'grel were to kill both of them. It was one of the few places in the space station without any kind of surveillance. John's shift was about to end and he was supposed to go down on the next teleportation shift, but decided that he would just go down on the one after that. He wasn't finished here yet and wouldn't be in a half hour. Du'grel floated up three stories. The floors and walls had melted in the flames he had created and the walls around him were still burning white-hot. Anyone other than him would already be burned to a crisp, but his cold aura countered the heat and he only felt warm and comfy.

When he encountered at the top of the damage and saw that superheroes were running around above him on the corridor. He took a chance and shimmered up on the corridor when there was no one walking on it. He hid in a alcove and tried to decide who should he be now. Every one of the heroes was running around because of his explosion and he could turn into almost anyone of them.

But they would know who it was if they saw two of one hero in the surveillance cameras. More that he thought about it he should turn into one of the staff members, but they had been evacuated from this area because a dangerous super-powered criminal had escaped.

Who then? Du'grel shrugged dismissively and just turned into Question. He was usually lurking around on the station anyways; at least judging from the memories he had been able to gather. He could also change his appearance, so it was the best he could do.

He ran to the end of the corridor and turned left, where the elevators were. Question's mask didn't have eyeholes, so he could keep his eyes as they were and could see everything. He slammed his hand on the call button and waited for the elevator. He had to get five floors up, but he knew that he couldn't get there without getting detected without shimmering or using a disguise. Shimmering was out of the question for the time being and disguises were always risky, but he really had no choice. He had to get out of the station before Raven would sober up enough to talk.

Green Lantern stepped next to him to wait for the elevator. Du'grel knew that Question wasn't really talkative, but he had a tendency to know things before anyone else.

"I heard that Shayera got hurt on the lower levels when that assailant escaped. She was right next to the explosion with those adolescent Titans." Du'grel snickered behind his mask when he saw the shock on Green Lantern's face. He couldn't help himself and he continued. "The explosion vaporised three other cells next to the one he was in. It was fortunate that they were empty at the time. It is still too hot to go in there, but I hear that one of the kids is a healer and can teleport."

Green Lantern's eyes were wider than Du'grel thought possible and he covered himself with his ring's power and flew off. He was probably heading for the stairs to the lower levels to see if Question was right. He had no reason to doubt Question and rushed to fly through the white-hot hell just below Du'grel's feet. He had to admire the design of this place; even though he had practically vaporized the lower half of the containment area it was still sound as a pound…

Sound as a pound? Where the hell did he get that? Sounds British, maybe he picked it from Intelligence while he was in Raven's mind, or maybe he just got it from John O'Doyle. He turned his eyes away from Green Lantern's retreating back and stepped into the elevator when the doors opened. Luckily, there was no one on it but him. He really did despise killing. Honestly.

He pressed the button that would take him up five levels and to the floor where John O'Doyle was fucking the living daylights out of Rebecca Pierce. He really didnät want to do what he was about to do, but John O'Doyle could run into the teleportation hall when he was trying to lend his identity. He had to kill them, even though he hated doing it. He did not want any loose ends. He would leave the bodies there and mainly unharmed for their families to be able to burry them respectfully. It was the least he could do.

He got all the way up in the elevator without anything happening. He walked across a hall with some of the station workers running around. They didn't seem surprised to see Question there. He really was a suspicious creep. When Du'grel turned a corner he was dressed in a blue jumpsuit and his hair was red, his jaw looked sharp and he had cold blue eyes. He looked like John O'Doyle. He turned left and then opened a door midway on the corridor

"Hey! What do you think you're doing! I'm kind of in a middle of something here!" John O'Doyle shouted while retreating from the woman and pulling his pants up. Any other words he might have wanted to say never came out when he saw himself looking at him with a dangerous look in his eyes. Du'grel grabbed his throat and easily lifted him of the floor. He didn't bother on suppressing his frost and John O'Doyle's lips turned blue after just thirty seconds. He could have just held on and waited for his blood to freeze in his veins, but he dropped him on the floor after he passed out. He would be hypothermic, would have a hell of a headache and possibly some minor brain damage, but he would be alive. He decided that killing him would just complicate things even more.

Du'grel turned his eyes to the woman. He had always liked women and really despised hurting them if he was not forced to. They were so soft and frail. They were also so delicious… Especially Jinx. It might be her demonic heritage or just her fiery temper, but Du'grel just loved the taste of her blood, and other juices. He smirked and looked at the woman in front of him. She was frozen in place by fear of seeing the man he had just been fucking with strangle himself. Her legs were still open and she was supported on some boxes of cleaning appliances. Du'grel could just take a step and play with the woman for a minute. _Why do you tempt me so? _Du'grel really would have liked to dive into her mind and soul and alter her perception, so that she would howl of pleasure.

But he was on a schedule. He stepped a step closer to the woman and leaned in closer. He might not have time to play with her, but he at least wanted to know what she tasted like. He leaned in close and placed his mouth on her frail neck. He sunk his fangs in her artier and then drank the blood that flowed into his mouth. The woman gasped and moaned, but didn't try to get away. Actually it felt like she was leaning in closer to him and craning her neck so that he had better access. She was so warm and sweet. Maybe a little too sweet for his taste, but if he wouldn't restrain himself soon he would drink the poor woman dry.

He retreated from her neck and blood flowed down her neck and down to her breasts. A drop of blood teased him by quivering on the woman's hard nipple. It took every ounce of self-control for him not to bow his head and lick it off. And then continue to clean her whole chest… And then take care of the blood that had flowed down into her wet, warm, inviting…

_No! Keep it together. You have a teleportation to catch and you really don't have time for this. _He set his palm on the two small puncture marks on her neck. His hand glowed light blue for two seconds and the puncture marks closed up. Then he leaned back in and whispered a word into her ear

"**Sleep." **It worked much better than it did on Raven and the woman was asleep before he even finished saying the word. Du'grel had forgotten that Raven was Azarathian and had a natural resistance for these mind tricks. She knew how to do some of them herself. It was shocking how alike they were; like two sides of the same coin. Du'grel was energetic and liked to laugh at things, when Raven was quiet and drawn back. Raven was kind and compassionate, when Du'grel was gruel and inconsiderate. Both of them were the last survivors from Azarath, but Raven had been able to feel love, but Du'grel had been thrown away before he could feel any of those things. Raven had friends that cared for him, but Du'grel was hated, despised and chased.

"You will pay, Cassandra Raven Roth…" Du'grel's voice was the most reptilian it had ever been and the words were squeezed through clenched teeth between a sound that was something between growling and hissing. His clenched fists were bleeding because the claws had grown back and they almost went through his palm. His teeth were also extremely sharp when he carefully graced them with his tongue. At first he had used this transformation to look more threatening when he lost his temper with Robin, but now it always happened when he lost his temper. If he couldn't restrain himself in time he would probably turn into a dragon now.

He forced his anger down and turned his features back to look like John O'Doyle. He stepped out of the closet and closed the door behind him. He short-circuited the electronic lock by the side of the door just in case if someone needed something from the closet. He ran through the corridors and tried not to run too fast. When he arrived into the hall where the teleportation device was he shouted, just as a guy that was almost late would

"Wait! I'm here! I'm here! Hold the… whatever it is!" He ran to the pedestal where nine other people were already gathered and some of them chuckled when he steeped next to them.

"Was it worth it?" The brown haired man next to him whispered while snickering. Du'grel knew that he was referring to the woman the real John O'Doyle had been fucking. He smiled widely in response and the man retreated back smiling to himself. Du'grel was glad that he left it at that.

He was surrounded by flickering blue light and he felt how his body was being drawn down to earth. His lips curved into a wicked smile. When he appeared again on earth he immediately turned into himself – to the shock of the people that had teleported down with him – and launched off into the sky before they could say anything. He flew as fast as he could towards Jump City, towards Jinx. He let go off the control he had over his anger and his body started to stretch and grow. His skin ruptured and his growing form was engulfed in white flames.

When the fire died down there was a dragon flying over the barren landscape and roaring with all its might. It took a breath that bent the top of the trees he passed towards its lung and let out a huge pillar of white flames on the ground. The flames burned the ground where it hit and turned sand to fine glass, but froze everything solid around it.

Du'grel knew that he was easy to spot even from orbit, but he trusted that he could turn back and hide before they got anywhere close to him. He had to vent this anger somewhere, why not on a barren desert east of Jump City? He liked the rush of power when he flew across the skies and the clouds parted in front of him. Now, in this feral state, he felt like killing something and looked down on the desert under him. He saw several giant mutated scorpions when he passed some rock formations, but killing these mindless things would not satisfy his hunger.

He rose higher and higher and looked for sentient life on the desert, for some reason he expected to find a girl walking across the desert, a girl with blonde hair and big blue eyes. He felt like he felt he should have known her from somewhere… Had he, as himself, met her or did he just drain the memory from someone? This was the biggest thing that he didn't like about his life. He was a strong telepath and he had used that ability to learn customs, languages and other things he had needed to survive. Pair this with his abilities as a shape shifter and you had a perfect chameleon. He could be anyone and he had often found comfort in hiding behind someone else's identity.

That was before he started making a name for himself. No one had named him, so he had to name himself. He had decided on Du'grel Desham for reasons he wasn't aware of back then, but now he knew. The words Du'grel Desham had a different meaning than just his name. They were two ancient Azarathian words, which meant two things. Desham meant "cold". As in something being cold to touch or void of warmth. Du'grel was actually two words that had been joined together to represent "fire". "Du" was a word used when describing something being hot to touch or a space being unpleasantly hot. "Grel" was a word used to represent light or other kind of radiation. These words were from his mother's tribe and their eyes could see almost any kind of radiation around them, so to separate light from other kinds of radiation was not practical.

If he would have known this he might have told the Teen Titans that his name was Fire Cold. He might have dressed it up a little to make it sound like a real name and said that it was Blaze Cold. He had chosen his name to represent his defining quality: the flame now burning in his veins and granting him immortality from any kind of wound. He didn't know for sure if he even could die of old age, but he thought that it was highly unlikely. His flame would continue on no matter what happened to his mind or body. He could pass it down to his descendants or give a small part of it to the people he cared about to stop them from dying.

No matter what happened; the fire was his and no one else's to control. The fire was not a part of him; it was him. When he was trapped inside that enchanted ice his mind or his flame could not leave or dissipate into nothing and they had joined into one.

"Thousands of years, Raven! Thousands and thousands! And you will pay for each and every one!" The dragons voice rumbled and shook the ground and air beneath and around him. He let his anger grow into a blind fury and then roared with all his might. The ground beneath him danced and split when he passed and crushed countless of scorpions and other monsters of the desert. If the moving ground didn't crush them they died because of the crushing weight of the anger, in the form of pure energy, filling their small minds. They were scorched from the inside out when the drastic amounts of energy surged through their neural pathways.

Du'grel stopped roaring when he saw a small figure in the distant horizon. He changed his flight trajectory and started to descend towards the small figure. His eyes told him that it was a human, a woman with blond hair and blue eyes.

_Could it be? Am I going to meet the girl haunting my mind? I do not even know her name, but I am sure that I have, or some one I have met, has deep feelings for her. I could use her if that is so. _Again, Du'grel forced his anger down and steered a little with his wings to land next to the woman without hurting her. She looked up when his shadow blocked out the sun and fell to the ground more from shock than the impact when the giant dragon landed. Du'grel walked away from the woman and then started circling her when he was ten metres away from her. His scales shone blindingly bright under the scorching sun and his wings were just a shimmer in the air in the bright light. They were just as bright as the sun and couldn't be as brilliant as they had been. The light was too even here for them to shine as they usually did. They still reflected the light into thousands of rainbows and looked hypnotic.

The woman kept on turning in the ground to keep the huge beast in front of her. She was either afraid to turn her back to it or sunken too deep into the beast's beauty. The way light twisted and played in its scales and how its wings were rainbows must have been very hypnotic. Du'grel stopped and his tail snapped forward and its whip like end wrapped around the woman's waist and lifted her in front of the dragon's brightly shining eyes. He needed to see her more closely. He had a vague image of the girl in his head and seeing her would probably bring the memories out.

"Tell me your name, woman!" He didn't intend to shout the words, but the dragon's throat was not made for speaking quietly. The closest he could get to a whisper still made the earth rumble with his words. The woman looked remarkably like…

Terra. Yes, that was her name. Terra could move earth with her mind. He probably picked up the Teen Titans memories of her when he was around them. Beast Boy still loved Terra, even though he had feelings for Raven as well. That could develop into to love if given enough time. Judging from what he had seen inside Raven's mind, she had started to return Beast Boy's feeling when he showed up and screwed her up. He looked at the woman in front of his face. She was not Terra. The real Terra was in a cave beneath Jump City, trapped by her own powers. Maybe he should visit her sometime.

Now, what to do with this woman? He could tear her in half with one quick snap of his tail, just swallow her, or just slam her to the ground and crush her small body. He could kill her in so many ways. He could also let her live, but he doubted that she would survive out here by herself any longer anyways. She had no water with her and he saw no one in miles. She would definitely die out here, even without Du'grel. So it would be more merciful if he killed her here, quickly and when she was hypnotized by his dragon form's beauty.

He set the woman down on the ground and then raised his clawed hand to strike her. Her resemblance to Terra was unbelievable. She had the same big blue eyes, but had more womanly assets than the tomboyish Terra. Her hair was also slightly darker than Terra's and she had a jaw. She could have been her older sister or…

Du'grel stopped his hand before it hit the woman. Could that really be? Could this woman be Terra's mother? Had she been looking for her daughter when he found her out here? Terra had been a wandering spirit and the Titans met her on the edge of this very desert. It was definitely a possibility he could not rule out before looking into this woman's mind. He had to sigh deeply. The woman was knocked back a couple of meters by the gush of air from the dragon's lungs. Why these kinds of things always happened to him?

He leaned his spiked head close to the woman and looked deep into her mind. He saw past her present and looked into her past. He looked for memories tainted with a specific emotion to ease his search: maternal love. He didn't have to look for long as the memories were fresh in her mind and they had driven her for the past couple of years. He retreated from the woman's mind before he lost himself in there.

So now he knew that this woman was important to Terra, but did she really need her? She could easily manipulate Terra without her and she would just complicate things if he brought her with him to the city. She wasn't much of a pawn in his game and he definitely could just kill her and no one would know. Sparing her life would serve no purpose. He could always lie if he wanted to use her as leverage with Terra.

Still, the blinding rage was gone and he just wanted to taste Jinx again and this detour already bored him. He lost his interest and what ever he did here it would not have any effect in his plans. He summoned a rug sack full of water next to the woman, more to see if he could do it than to save her.

"She is in Jump City, you will see her again! I would not count on her wanting to see you though!" He rumbled when he spread his wings and jumped into the deep blue sky. He continued to fly to Jump City without stopping to think about the woman he had met in the desert and what he had done for her. He stayed up in the lower atmosphere to keep people from seeing him. When he was above Jump city he folded his wings to his sides and lunged down from the sky. When he was a hundred meters and three seconds away from hitting the top of one of the skyscrapers of the city he exploded into white flames and flames touched down on the roof with practically no impact. They raged for a minute. Retreating inwards until it was as big and shaped like a long man standing. The flames died down suddenly and Du'grel was standing on the roof. He was naked, freezing and his body hurt like hell all over, but it didn't hurt nearly as much as the last time. There would probably be a time when there would not be any side effects from his transformation, but that day was a long way into the future.

His powerfully enchanted overcoat appeared and wrapped itself around him. It conjured up other clothes on him as well. All black though, but Du'grel had grown attached to that colour. It was conventional and you were harder to spot from the shadows. Plus, he had found that it was thought to be "cool" on this planet, so he had no reason to complain.

When his body finally stopped shaking and his lips turned light pink from blue he jumped down from the building and flew towards Jinx's familiar energy signature. How long had passed in this world when he had spent only a couple of hours in the other world. Time moved differently in different worlds and it could have been weeks or even months in this world.

Jinx would be mad if he had been away a week or two without saying anything to her. He knew that much of the mating rituals and customs on this planet. Most of his mind tricks didn't work on her and she could beat him pretty severally before she would calm down.

Du'grel smiled. This was the reason he liked her so much. He could always be sure that her reactions were true and not influenced by his powers. If it had been weeks she would most definitely know about his actions up in the Watchtower. She didn't like killing and she despised murderers. He could lose her.

He lost the concentration he needed to fly when this thought hit him. He crashed down on a car parked on the edge sidewalk. The car crumbled under him and shards of glass exploded from the crushed car. He heard how people yelled from shock and pain when the shards of glass flying from the car cut some of them.

He could really be something she despised now. Jinx could hate him. He was surprised by the horror that this thought filled him with. What would his life be without her? Very much the same he had to admit, but he didn't want to lose her. His life would consist of cruelty and harming people he had nothing against. Because of these things he was forced to do people would hate and despise him. He could turn into anyone he wanted to, but he could never feel warmth or this thing that these earthlings called "love" as him. He would be forced to live through other people. Like he had lived before he came to this planet. He knew how empty his life had been after he was forced to see Raven and her friends. They accepted and loved her, no matter what she was. She was almost exactly what he was and still she had found someone to accept her.

What about him? Had he found someone to accept him as he was? Jinx definitely knew that he wasn't human, but she did think that he was a dragon. Du'grel touched the sharp pairs fangs in his mouth. Well, now he was definitely at least part dragon. Some parts of the dragon's physiology helped him to control his flame and keep his body from exploding into flames. So, he didn't actually lie to her back then. He hadn't actually been a dragon, but he had adopted some of their genome to be what he was now.

That still didn't change the fact that he had killed several people and quite brutally now when he thought about it. He had taken Slade as part of his flame, he had slit Flash's throat, a relatively peaceful way to go compared to what he had done to Mara. He had drained Superman from the inside and left him to slowly wither away in the shell of his former might. He had sucked out Supergirl's and Stargirl's minds and souls, along with their power. He had left their bodies unharmed. He could still feel them all inside him. He had eaten their minds and souls like some ghoulish beast. He felt like he was going to be sick, but was still able to control himself. He didn't want to defile himself.

If he could feel them inside him… If he had drained their bodies of their minds and souls when he had stolen their power… Where they still alive if their minds were trapped inside his flame? Could it be? Could it really be that he could make it all better in the end? He could undo what he had done? He thought about this idea carefully. Tried to see if he had gotten something wrong. What did he actually drain from the people he killed? Memories, because he needed to know how to use the power he stole from them. He drained the of all of it as it was easier that way than try to only pick out the bits and pieces he needed. Yes, he did have their whole lives inside him. If he created a body for them he could give the body a past.

That was true, but did he truly drain their soul from them? He drained them of their power and energy. Was their soul really tied to that energy or was it something more complex? If he could give them their memories back in the bodies could they feel emotions after that? Would they only be machines living out their lives based on their memories? He could recreate Flash's body exactly as it had been and he would probably have his powers, but would he be alive? Could Du'grel really start playing god like this?

_God, this is confusing! I can feel them all inside me and I know that it is them, but can I really be sure that I would not just mess everything up even worse if I try and resurrect the dead? My father passed down to me a flame that could burn to nothing and create from nothing._

_What is this flame? Nothing, Divine power of creation, or something entirely different? I can create things from nothing, I do not burn oxygen in the air to create flames, I create heat and it ignites the air. I am pretty sure that I could create Flash's body again. I saw it and my eyes see into the very nature of things. If I see something I can understand and copy it. I dug down deep into Flash's soul while I tried to understand his power. I killed him in hopes to make him let down his barriers and let me in. It worked and I saw, understood and mimicked everything he was. I put the parts of him I didn't need deep within my flame and forgot about them. I threw him and the others away like garbage. Without giving them a second thought. I got what I wanted from them and then just threw them away._

_What am I? A monster? Probably, but can't I change? I want to redeem myself now, I truly do… _

_But why? Do I feel regret for my actions? No. Do I want to ease the suffering of the people I have hurt through them? No. Am I forced to this because of the runes on my body? No. Am I forced by the promise I made to Raven's mother? No._

_I want to do this because I feared that I might not be able to be near Jinx because of my actions. I felt no regret from my actions, but simply wanted them to go away for her to like me again. What had she done to me? Is this just because of my need to taste her or my need not to hurt her in any way? I realize now that my relationship with Jinx is very much like what the runes on my body force me to have with Raven. I cannot hurt Raven because of the runes on my body and I cannot hurt Jinx because of the feelings I have for her._

_Is this the thing the earthlings call love, this thick, heavy, smothering feeling in my chest when I see her? The first time he felt it was after their night together and he thought that someone had punched him in the gut without him knowing it. For the first time in his life he felt how his emotions affected his ability to control his body. That had never happened before. His emotions had always been detached from his body and he only acknowledged that he felt them. He didn't actually feel them in his body. Had he been only feeling the feelings of the people around him and only thought that they were his? _

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted when the fire department started to carefully peel of the layers of the car he had landed on around the person they thought to be a suicide attempter. He just now became aware that the sun had set hours ago and he must have lain inside the wreckage of this car for hours. These people probably thought that he had jumped of off one of the skyscrapers to end his life and were now trying to save him.

"Excuse me, but you do not need to do that. I can get out on my own now. Sorry to cause you to worry." He said in a muffled voice when he started to wrestle his way out of the confines of the twisted metal. He knew that there were rescue personnel too close to him for him to use any kind of energy attacks. They would get radiation sickness or be burned to a crisp if he would try to blow his way out. They had been cutting the roof of the car off when he interrupted them, so he could kick it off him. He had landed through it but had sunk deep enough in the car for it to still be on top of him. The rescue personnel had seen superheroes sunken inside cars like this before and had saved quite a few out of buildings that had collapsed on them. They weren't that surprised when Du'grel climbed out looking perfectly fine.

"You here to see the Titans?" Asked a middle-aged fire fighter in a amused tone. Du'grel read his mind quickly and then tried to think what kind of response would ease their worries.

"Yeah. I've been flying day and night and I guess I just…" He shrugged and continued, "I must have dozed off or something. Lucky that no one got hurt." He hovered off the ground and then sped off into the sky before they could say anything. He heard how one of them muttered, "I want to fly too…" He heard when someone punched him on the arm and said, "You would have to save people for a living then…" Du'grel heard how all of the rescue workers started laughing. And then started to venture into a nearby tavern to get hammered. They had already forgotten all about Du'grel.

Du'grel flew straight towards Jinx's energy signature, but didn't rush like he had before. He did not want to rush into the fight they were bound to have. He had killed five people in the span of just a couple of hours without a second thought. He was not sure anymore if he even deserved her affection. He was cruel and inconsiderate, a real demon by nature and didn't deserve someone like her. He had to go to no matter how much he thought that he was not worthy.

"Everyone would be better off with me dead…" He muttered when he landed in front of the door which would lead to a hallway that had a door that lead into the underground tunnel that lead to the door of the Hive five's current hide out's side entrance. He could have just shimmered through the walls and just appeared into Jinx's room, but decided to let her decide if she even wanted to talk to him. He opened the door knowing that it triggered an alarm inside their evil lair. They knew that someone was approaching the side entrance.

He walked forward on the dark hallway and walked past several doors until he stopped in front of a blank looking wall. It was dirty and the wallpaper was torn and flapped against the wall in the breeze. Gizmo really knew how to make real life holograms. Anyone with normal human eyes would think that it was just a normal wall. Du'grel hardly even noticed the illusion; he only saw how something blurred the door a little and was aware that there was man-made radiation in the air in front of it. He walked to the door and turned the handle that should have been invisible to the naked eye. He started floating slightly above the ground when he stepped into the underground tunnel with the Hive five's side entrance at the end of it. He saw that there were laser tripwires on almost every inch of the floor. Tripping any of them would set off several explosives and collapse the tunnel on him. He stopped and floated in mid-air when he reached the reinforced door. He knocked.

He had to wait for three minutes for Gizmo's face to appear on the screen next to the door. "What do you want, snot-muncher?"

Du'grel let the childish insult pass this time and said in an even tone, "I am here to talk to Jinx." He saw how Gizmo moved the stick on his remote that controlled his inventions and heard how the camera next to the screen zoomed in.

"Here to see Jinx, huh? Are you the guy who beat up Seemore because he was watching Jinx take a shower? Her boyfriend." Gizmo asked after looking at his face through the camera. Du'grel nodded shortly and then looked straight at the camera.

"Could you just tell Jinx that I am here to see her?" Gizmo stared at him for a moment and then yelled over his shoulder, "Jinx, your boyfriend is here to see you!" He was immediately knocked out off the screen by a flying armchair. _She's in a bad mood…_ Du'grel thought and then seriously thought about running away.

The door in front of him opened to show a furious Jinx standing there with her hands on her sides, clenched into fists. Du'grel gulped. _This is going to hurt. _

"What do you want?" She said coldly. Du'grel felt something twinge painfully inside him. The foreign feeling made his face twist from pain and he almost lost the concentration he needed to levitate. He noticed that it was hard to get a word out when he opened his mouth.

"To talk, to explain." Du'grel didn't feel encouraged by the waves of resentment and hurt rolling off of her aura and swallowed his explanations. It didn't really change the fact that he had killed them if he could bring them back. He wasn't even that sure that was possible in real life, but in theory he was able to recreate their bodies through the imprint on their soul and mind. If he would try to explain this to Jinx now, she would only get angrier. She wasn't ready to listen, she never might not be. He couldn't blame her. He could not make excuses for the things he had done and what he will do in the future. He had killed, he had manipulated the feelings of everyone around him, he had lied and worst of all, he thought that he could just wish it all away. He wasn't really shocked by Jinx's words when she said:

"There is nothing to explain, Du'grel. You killed them. There is nothing you can say or do that will make me forgive you now." He had seen them coming, but it didn't stop the words from hurting him. It hurt him deep to lose her. He bowed his head and closed his eyes to battle the emotions inside him. He had played with her emotions and body and also knew that he had manipulated her like anyone else, but…

He really had feelings for her. Human feelings, warm and fulfilling not the cold and decisive logical emotions he had had or the second-hand emotions he drained from around him to fill the gaping hole in his soul. Now he felt how the cold he had been able to keep away since he landed on this planet flooded back and numbed the pain. He had only had a taste of it before, but now it filled his body and mind. This was his old self's flame. This was the thing that made him immortal. Now with it in his body and mind, he was invulnerable to any attack.

"You do not understand… You really do not understand…" He whispered when the air around him started to sparkle and glisten. "You were important to me… More so than anything else on this world…" He raised his head and looked into Jinx's eyes. She thought that she saw a flash of emotion in his eyes before they turned into painfully bright pools of light. "You were the only thing keeping me human." The air was painfully cold now and frost covered the space around Du'grel. Jinx was also very cold, but she noticed that there was a three-meter area around him without any frost. "Goodbye, Jinx." Du'grel was already shimmering away when he whispered these words and they sounded distant and lifeless.

* * *

Du'grel shimmered back into existence inside the Titan's tower. He listened carefully for any signs of life before stepping out of the closet he had shimmered in. He was pretty sure they were still up in the Watchtower, but better safe than sorry. When he didn't hear or see anything indicating sentient life, he stepped into the huge living room. He walked to one of the computer terminals by the window without hesitation. He sat down and started typing after changing into Robin. It was easier to access his memories when he was in his body and he needed Robin's fingerprints to access the files he wanted to.

He typed in Robin's passwords and only stopped when the computer asked for DNA- confirmation. _DNA? They must have upgraded the security protocols after I switched sides. They do know I am a telepath and a shape shifter. _He typed in a couple of commands and a sharp needle shot out from the mouse and into his palm. His right arm flinched, but he didn't pull his arm back. The needle collected a single drop of blood and then the spike retreated back into the mouse and the screen of the computer went blank for a couple of seconds.

When the screen lit back up it read: "Hello, Robin." Du'grel snickered; _did they really think I couldn't copy DNA? _Du'grel turned back into himself and kept on typing on the computer. He accessed Raven's file and then searched the "personal contacts" list for a shortcut to the information he was looking for.

"Aah, Melvin…" His lips spread to show his two pairs of fangs and he slowly licked his upper lip, like licking something sweet off of it. He wondered what she was going to taste like.


	11. Chapter 11

**Sorry it took so long to write this, but it was really nerve wrecking for me to write this. I really didn't know what to have him do. Spare her, kill her, molest her? I indented for this chapter to be about... Well I don't know, but this was a hard one for me to write and it might seem a little crude, but I'm done with this and I'm not going to change it.**

* * *

**Chapter 11**

He stood on a hill covered in long grass and huge boulders sticking out of the ground. He was standing in a shadow of one group of boulders that were positioned like there was a hand trying to break through from the ground. It seemed like God had given the rock life and then taken it away when the huge rock monster was just stretching its fingers. He really had no idea why that kind of image came to his mind. He was standing under the shadow of the boulder that would probably be the index finger. He was impossible to spot from the house on the base of the hill. His black overcoat seemed to be sewn from the darkness itself and only his eyes stood out from the shadow. They shone bright golden and the air around his head glistened and sparkled from the might that seeped out of them. He was looking down to the house and kept perfectly still. He had stayed like this for hours and just watched down into the house. His eyes easily penetrated through the walls and he focused his gaze on a girl sleeping soundly in her bed. He was looking into her mind and was also trying to find her imaginary friend.

Melvin had grown from the first time she had met Raven. Back then she had been a cute twelve year old kid with a huge not-so-imaginary friend. She was still very cute, but now she was more mature and time had been kind to her. She didn't have that much scars, but there was one on her face that cut across her brow and looked like it had been caused by a jagged blade. Du'grel knew the circumstances where it was a memory of and admired her courage. According to her, and the other members of her family's, memories she had jumped between a civilian and a self-destructing robot. It was a miracle that she survived with only that little damage. The scar was from a wound that was caused from a single piece of shrapnel that Bobby couldn't protect her from cut a gashing wound in her forehead and cut of a piece of her right ear. Melvin had decided to keep the scar there to remind him that he shouldn't count on Bobby to always be there to save her.

She really was an admirable hero, someone to look up on in such young age. Too bad she was so important to Raven. Otherwise, Du'grel would have gladly protected her from any harm. Her soul was beautiful and complex in its design. Du'grel had arrived here hours ago but he was not going rush into anything. Raven could not know about this before he wanted her to. If she came here when she was still trying get past this girl's teddy bear it would not have the desired effect. He had thought this out to be a precise attack on her psyche and it was crucial that she would know about this on the time of his choosing.

He wasn't the patient type by nature, but the fact that he couldn't see the girl's teddy bear anywhere was troubling him. He would have to take it out quietly before he could make his move on Melvin. He knew of a way to sever the telepathic link between them, so it would be possible to do this quietly.

But first he had to find the freaking thing. Where the hell could a giant teddy bear be? It was not like it could hide very well. Not from his eyes at least. He did know that it had hid from Raven and she couldn't even sense it before it decided to show itself.

Still he should be able to see it. Had he been wrong to think that the girl and the bear really were two separate things? Could it be that it only existed when she was awake? Did she really create it with the telepathic powers of her own?

No, Raven's file of her specifically said that the bear was only something someone had given to her to protect her.

He should be able to see it then. Nothing should be able to hide from his eyes. They were especially meant for finding hidden foes and seeing into the minds of others. He definitely should be able to see some indication of the bear somewhere. Nothing or no one can really disappear. They could mask their appearance by blending into the background by mimicking your surroundings or make yourself invisible by letting light pass through you. These were all good ways to hide you from normal eyes, but Du'grel's eyes were anything but normal. He could see your mind and not a single sentient being in the universe can hide that. If you have a mind and soul, your thoughts and feelings are bound to seep out. There was nothing you could do to stop it. Du'grel's eyes were meant to see these energies and he had an inherited ability to read what he saw and understand it. His long gone people's eyes had evolved to see almost every other kind of radiation before they became able to detect this kind of subtle movements of energy.

If you can see it, truly see it, you can understand it. If you can understand it, you can control it. His people had not been telepaths to the slightest, but by the way they could see what to say or do to get what they wanted from people, they just as well might have been. Now when Du'grel also had the attributes of a real telepath, other people's minds were more like a playground for him. He could alter their perception with ease and he especially liked to mess with someone's feelings. He had not been aware that he had been doing this, but things had always seemed to go his way no matter what.

"Where are you, Bobby? Come out and play with me." Du'grel whispered the words into the wind and then turned his head around to look behind him. Bobby was standing right behind him. If he still would be even slightly affected by human emotions he would probably be scared shittless when seeing a 5-meter teddy bear with huge curved claws standing behind him in the pale moonlight. Now he just scolded himself for not looking behind his shoulder sooner and turned to face Bobby.

"You're smarter than you look, Bobby." His eyes flashed in a complex sequence and something in the air around them changed. Every sound of the forest around them dulled and sounded distant and lifeless, the light of the stars and the moon dimmed and they were left in almost complete darkness. "Now you can't alarm her through the link you share." Du'grel stopped to think if he should be talking to a huge possessed teddy bear. He shrugged and then continued: "Before you or me do anything, I would like you to know something: I have nothing against Melvin. That is the truth, but I have a score to settle with someone close to her. You know Raven, the blue girl?" Du'grel waited for Bobby to nod before continuing, "Yeah, her. Blame her for this."

Du'grel shot into action before Bobby could do anything. He used Flash's speed and chopped off the teddy's right leg with one slash of his hand. Bobby lost its balance and fell to the ground. Du'grel stopped next to him and swayed a little before he could catch his balance. Flash's speed was something that took some getting used to. He held out his right hand and a brilliant two-hand sword appeared in a flash of light that was dulled by the spell Du'grel had cast before. "This is as easy as ever in here…" Du'grel said when he admired the sword he had just conjured up. He grabbed it with both of his hands and then slashed through the air towards the boulder closest to him. There was a piercing screeching sound and the boulder was shattered into two clean pieces. Du'grel stop to admire the destruction he had caused. He continued the movement of his first swing and spun around to slash the sword over his shoulder and towards Bobby.

Bobby was able to throw himself away from the screeching projectile by using his arms. The violent gush of air and kinetic energy continued on its way of destruction and cut another boulder in half. Bobby jumped at Du'grel when his sword sunk into the ground and got stuck. It penetrated into the ground almost to the hilt and was impossible to pull out before Bobby could land its strike. He would have to get used to Superman's strength as well. He saw how Bobby's claws were slowly coming towards his head. He saw the world through Flash's speed and he knew that he could easily dodge the attack or snap the teddy's claws off one by one.

But he didn't have the time to stay and play with the teddy bear. He would have to adjust to his new powers, but it was not going to happen while fighting Bobby. He came here for Melvin, and Melvin alone, her teddy was expendable. He let go of the sword and jumped back when the claws were about to hit him. He kneeled down and slammed his hands down on the long, dry grass. Something that looked like mystified light exploded from under his palms and covered the high grass, the boulders and both of the combatants in an impenetrable cloud of bright white fog. The air around the cloud sparkled and the grass next to the fog withered and died. Du'grel walked out of the fog and then turned to look at the teddy bear. He had bound it to the ground by creating straps made of the same alloy the Teen Titans had tried to hold him down once. He knew that the teddy could break them in minutes, but it was more than he needed.

"Blame Raven, Bobby. I am doing this because of her." Du'grel said in a cold murderous voice when he held out his hand and then touched it with the tip of his finger. A small yellow spark flew from his finger and then divided again and again until there were about a dozen of these sparks circling around Bobby. The sparks increased their speed every second and the white mist started to whirl towards them. The mist retreated towards the flying sparks and the sparks grew in size and became brighter and brighter every passing second. When the sparks started slowing down and wobble in their course Du'grel started singing a spell and they kept on spinning faster and faster. The words were intelligible, but the song was beautiful and eerie either way. The song's tempo increased with the sparks speed and the sparks had already devoured almost all of the mist. They were now glowing in crimson red and were radiating heat around them. They inched closer to Bobby with every spin and its fur had already started to smoke. Du'grel kept on signing and tempting the sparks to let out more heat. All of the mist cleared and Du'grel could clearly see Bobby trashing against its chains, but also trying to stay away from the flying sparks around it. It had scorch marks all around its fur and small fires were already burning on its fur.

The light show was impressive and would have left anyone looking at it in awe, but Du'grel really didn't have time for this. He kept his song up and raised his right hand. He held it out palm up and a sphere with small counterparts of the sparks flying on its surface appeared and floated slightly above his palm. He closed his fingers around the sphere and the sparks flying around Bobby shone more brightly. Du'grel clenched his fist and the sphere dissipated in a puff of smoke. Each one of the sparks flying around Bobby suddenly stopped in mid-air and floated around Bobby, humming slightly. Du'grel stopped singing his spell and the humming intensified. The sparks started growing in size and came to resemble small crimson suns floating in the air. Bobby tried to keep from touching these crimson balls of light and heat, but eventually one of its claws came in contact with one of the suns.

The mini-sun that Bobby had touched exploded into flames that consumed Bobby and the other spheres of heat. Bobby was set on fire and the ripped to shreds when the other mini-suns exploded into flames. The fire was so concentrated and controlled that there was only a single scorched spot on the long grass and the withered and dead grass in a perfect circle around it.

It started raining pieces of Bobby when Du'grel started to walk down the hill. There was a small path leading down to the house. He knew from the memories he had gathered from Melvin and her parents, she was the only child, that she and her family used to come up to the boulders sticking out from the ground to watch the sunset or just have a nice little picnic on a hot summer day. They had made the path during the years they had lived here. Happy years. Many of those happy days flooded into his mind and he felt what they had felt. He looked back to the shattered boulders, the ominous scorch mark on the ground and to the small pieces of Bobby floating from the sky. He couldn't see the connection between the memories in his head and what he saw now.

"Things change. I only seem to be able to change them to the worse…" Whatever he said, did or saw couldn't change the past. He was able to stop time, but the past was the past: gone, unreachable. Someone or something out there could be able to change the past, but that was beyond his reach. He couldn't change what he did, nor did he want to, so he turned back to walk towards the house. He didn't actually _feel _anything, since the cold had numbed his pain and every other human emotion with it, but he was eagerly waiting for his chance to play with Melvin. She had grown into a teenager and for what he had seen she had a lean, frail and athletic figure. She was going to be delicious, young, tender and juicy.

He didn't use Flash's speed to get to the house in a heartbeat, since he didn't want Melvin to wake up when he would crash into the side of the house. He hadn't really learned how to control these new powers he had. He walked slowly and calmly towards the house. When he reached the house he stopped to reconsider his approach. His body's density had increased dramatically after he absorbed Flash and Superman's powers. He also had small chunks of everyone else's energy on the station inside him. His body had to recreate itself to contain these new energies, but it had not yet been able to start mimicking and generating them. It took time to readjust your body to generate a new form of energy. Most of them would just be used to feed his flame and make him able to resist them, but some powers he really could use: like Flash's speed, Superman's strength and such. These became solid parts of his body and it had to create new cells and even whole new organs to access them. Thus, his body's density had changed since he had to make his body be able to sustain the powers of the ones he devoured.

Melvin's house was made of wood and wood would creak and break if he stepped on it. There was no way he could sneak into the house without being heard. He could always levitate, but Melvin was a low-class telepath and she would hear a steady hum of energy if he did levitate. She could wake up and notice that she couldn't hear Bobby anymore. If she would be able to send a telepathic distress call to Raven he would be forced to withdraw. Even though he could sever the link between Melvin and Bobby, Raven's mind was something he couldn't mess with. Not her conscious mind at least. He had found ways to work around that.

So, what to do, what to do? He could shimmer and snatch her from her bed, but he didn't like that approach. He could sing a spell that would allow him to walk as lightly as the wind. That would not do, like they wouldn't wake up if he would start signing. Shimmering seemed like the only sensible approach…

Wait a minute! So what if she wakes up? If Raven would already be here to save her when she notices that someone had hurt Bobby she would not send that distress call. He could scramble her communicator's frequency, so that she wouldn't be able to call for help. Levitating wouldn't be a problem if he would turn into Raven. She can fly and she levitated all the time.

He brought fourth every image and memory of Raven he had of her and felt how his flesh started swirling to new forms. His overcoat turned into a dark blue cloak. He felt how breasts grew from his chest and his penis shrunk and then retreated into his body. He knew that he was male, but since he was a shape shifter he could actually mimic both sexes. He didn't really know if he could become pregnant if he would some day get carried away on being a woman, but it was possible in theory. He really didn't feel any attraction on the thought of being a woman, but this transformation had to be perfect. Melvin couldn't suspect him, or his plans would be ruined. If Raven would know of this she would be alerted to the fact that he was aiming to hurt her. He didn't want that to happen just yet. He concentrated on creating the image of Raven's mind around him and tried to keep his anger under control, so that his eyes wouldn't change.

When he felt like he was as much Raven as he could stand to be he lifted of the ground and levitated above the porch of the house and moved towards the single window above it, the one looking into Melvin's room. He tapped lightly on the window and whispered "Melvin!" in Raven's voice. Melvin had curtains obstructing his view into the room. He had changed his eyes to be like Raven's, not just look like them, since he knew that he couldn't keep that kind of transformation stable for long periods of time. He couldn't see if she woke up or not and he tapped on the window again and said her name just a little just a little louder. "Melvin, for the sake of Azarath, wake up."

The curtains were opened and Melvin's sleepy face appeared she yawned and stretched with her arms spread on either side of her. "Hmm? Raven? What are you doing in these parts?" Melvin was wearing a white tank top and light blue pyjama pants. She looked so pure and innocent with her messed up hair and clear blue eyes that Du'grel felt tempted to break through the glass and bite her frail neck. But that wouldn't be satisfying at all, would it? No, this had to be slow, he had to savour it, savour her taste as long as possible.

"Hurry, there isn't much time. We have to leave, Melvin, before he gets to you." Du'grel offered his hand to Melvin after she had opened the window. He saw how her facial expression turned from puzzled into horrified when she realized she couldn't hear Bobby anymore.

"Raven, I can't hear Bobby anymore! Why can't I hear Bobby? What is happening, Raven? What happened to Bobby?"

"Bobby is holding him back, but I'm afraid we still don't have much time. We have to escape while he is too preoccupied to notice." He said and tried to make Raven's voice sound as angry and poisonous he could. He thought that he did a very good job, since he felt inclined to tearing his own throat open.

"What? Wait! Who's "he" and why won't we fight him? If he's hurt Bobby in any way I'm gonna – " Du'grel didn't have time for this cocky girls bullshit and created an illusion of a pillar of fire exploding out towards the sky on the hill with the broken boulders. He also shifted and heated the air around them to make it seem like the explosions shock-wave. He still sensed that she was ready to fight, so he conjured up the memory of Bobby in flames and then placed it to walk out of the explosion.

"Bobbie!" Melvin climbed through the window and tried to go towards the illusion of her pet teddy bear. Du'grel thought that Raven – the real Raven – would not let Melvin endanger herself, so he grabbed her and held her back. He created a ghost figure of himself wearing his overcoat with the hood up on the hill and made it hold out a hand and shoot a crimson ray of energy towards the teddy bear. He again conjured his own memory of Bobby exploding into thousands of little pieces and placed it behind his back.

"BOBBIE! Let me go, Raven! LET ME GO!" She kicked and screamed but Du'grel kept her pressed against his body. He almost felt sick from all of the raw emotion rolling off of her small mind. Humans are so pathetic. This thing they call love cripples their ability to function and they think it's their greatest strength? Truly, truly pathetic.

"I can't let you go! What could you do? I came here to save you from him! There is nothing you or I can do to stop him!" Du'grel was now sure to put as much of anger and poison into her voice, but was sure to put in a distinguishable undertone of painful defeat. He had to sound like the real thing and he was sure that Raven was not stupid enough to launch into a battle she could never win. He was even surer that she would not let Melvin do so either. She was a healer and seeing the people she cared about get hurt, hurt her more than anything. This was the reason Du'grel was here in the first place.

No, he had to get her out of here before her parents –

Now, that's a funny idea. Why would I be concerned about her parents waking up? They're just a couple of humans. Oh yeah, they could alert Raven somehow. He didn't know how that would be possible, but, well…

**We should** **take care of them before they even get the chance, already on it.**

Du'grel heard how the ghost image of himself that he had created was charging up a spell. He knew that Melvin could also hear some kind of vague melodic buzzing in the back of her head. Normal people couldn't even hear this spell being cast, but psychics could sense it coming their way and he thought that Raven would do exactly what he did now. There would be now time to rescue her parents if he really was Raven and the spell being cast was too powerful even for Raven's powers to protect them.

"We have to get out of here!" He shouted mimicking Raven's voice and flew away from the house while holding Melvin tightly against him. She felt so tiny and frail that he felt like he could brake her and scatter the pieces on the land below them. He realized that Melvin would not feel tiny and frail with Raven's physiology and he changed his grip so it would look like she was heavy. He also sent a shiver of excitement to run up and down Melvin's spine and was sure to place his hands in places that she would feel uncomfortable. This was just a small detail he liked to add just for what he had planned for her in the near future. Melvin didn't even notice it right then and there. She was too busy truing to struggle away from his loosened grip when she heard and saw the first strands of light from the spell Du'grel's image was casting.

It was a summoning spell and there was no way to protect you from it. It also shielded the one casting it as soon the first powerful word left his or hers mouth. It summoned a being made of pure light and that fed on the souls of the living. If you were in the place where it was being cast and saw the first strands of light circle around you it was already too late to do anything. You would be burned away in a flash of light and heat equivalent to the sun's burning core. Slowly, painfully, while the extra-dimensional demon savoured the energies your pain brought forth from the deepest parts of your soul and mind. This was a faith that Du'grel wouldn't have wished on anyone, the _old _Du'grel that is. The being that was now carrying Melvin in its arms and pretending to be Raven as a part of a complex scheme to hurt Raven did not care about what happened to Melvin's parents. He wanted her to suffer for Raven to suffer.

"Don't look, Melvin." Du'grel said and shook his shoulders so that the flapping blue cloak his overcoat was pretending to be would stop her from seeing the house she was raised in go up in flames, along with her parents. He felt how her hands hung onto Raven's cloak tighter and how she buried her head on Du'grel's/Raven's chest. There had been tears on her face ever since she saw her friend Bobbie go up in flames, but now she really started sobbing. He felt how her whole body shook from the force of her grief. She cried quietly, but it wouldn't have mattered anyways since Du'grel could feel the emotions rolling off of her. She had lost everything precious to her in less than hour's time and now she was clutching to the person she thought that was the only remaining person that cared for her. Of course she had other family, but she realized that if she would get anywhere near to them, then this guy that just killed her parents and lifelong possessed demonic (What else could it be?) servant teddy, would just slaughter them as well. She had no other choice than to hold on tight and stick with Raven.

Perfect.

He was sure that Melvin wouldn't notice the difference between Raven's dark energy teleportation and his extra dimensional shift in the state she was in now. He shimmered both of them to the Titans tower. He had carefully stared into the Watchtower before going after Melvin and knew that Raven would stay up there for hours. It wasn't enough time for his plans, but he knew some spells that could stretch time. He had all the time he wanted. He would have a hell of a headache after all this though. His fire gave him the power to execute these spells, but still they did take their toll on him. They would have killed every other being, but since he couldn't die he only got hellish headaches if he used too much of this magic. It was kind of pathetic that that was all those almighty primal powers of the universe could do to him. Guess he just inherited those privileges from his father.

He settled Melvin down on Raven's bed and she immediately curved up into a ball. She was clutching on the imitation of Raven's cloak desperately. It was clear that she didn't want to be alone right now. Du'grel wondered if he should leave her alone just for that reason. He stayed there standing beside Raven's bed for a moment before climbing next to Melvin. Causing that kind of petty pain was not required and the real Raven would not leave Melvin alone. She was a psychic after all. He still had to play the part.

"Hush, hush. I'm here, Melvin, I'm here." He whispered into Melvin's ear. He breathed a hot breath on her neck and then sent another shiver of excitement to run up and down her back. He felt how Melvin shuddered and the ball she had curled up to loosened up a little. He continued to loosen her up by planting a gentle kiss on her cheek and sending another shiver through her. He savoured the taste of her tears for a moment before he continued. It felt wrong to be pretending to be Raven when he did this, but he had concluded that when he would show Melvin's memories to Raven, it would hurt her more if she didn't know for sure if it really had been her. He had caused her recent mental problems and told her "emotions" to make her lose some hours of her life here and there. He had told them to either possess her body or steal the memories. They had done their job and now he only had one thing to ask of them. He would have to ask them for one more favour and then he would leave them alone to fuck each other until Raven would have the time to sort out her feelings.

He leaned in close enough that their lips were almost touching. He made her body to start trembling and her heart to start pounding. He could smell Melvin's breath and it was hard for him to restrain the urge to bite her. He also fooled Melvin's senses, so that she would smell Raven's breath. Her breath smelled like that herbal tea that she was always drinking. He allowed Melvin's body to start reacting with the suggestions he had made and for her mind to believe them before speaking.

"Melvin, I am here now and that is all that matters, okay? Let's forget about everything else and concentrate on each other for now." He smiled a little smile with Raven's features and then leaned in and gave Melvin a little feather light kiss on her lips. He pulled back a little and looked into Melvin's widened eyes. He felt how her heart pounded wildly and her whole body was like on fire. He knew that she had had a couple of fantasies almost exactly like this in the past, but otherwise she had been straight as an arrow. She had had one boyfriend, some boy from the school she went to, and she was definitely _mostly _heterosexual. She had never had funny feelings for her female friends or their mothers, but she had, for some unknown reason, fantasised about doing _it _with Raven a couple of times. Du'grel had to wonder if Raven was sending out some weird lesbian sex signals, since he had seen same kind of thoughts in Starfire's mind. She was from an other planet were sexuality was something not as clearly defined and she just masturbated like crazy to drive these thoughts away (making poor Raven aware of these thoughts and feelings and making her squirm in her sleep) and then continued to pursue Robin.

Melvin started to inch closer to Raven's lips and Du'grel kept perfectly still. He knew how frightened and unsure Melvin was and if he wouldn't let her make the first move here he could never do this as planned. When Melvin's lips met his (Raven's) lips he placed Raven's hands on either side of her face and kept her there and then started kissing her back. Melvin's kiss was quick and gentle, just like the one he had landed on her lips a second ago. She was still a little unsure about this, but when Du'grel nudged her mind closer to the horrors she had experienced that night, she was quick to answer the deep and passionate kiss Du'grel was landing on her lips right then. Du'grel graced Melvin's bottom lip with one of his fangs and then darted out his tongue to catch the drops of blood. Melvin didn't feel the fang cutting her lip, but she did taste the blood and when she tried to pull away when she thought that something was wrong. She thought that she had done something wrong.

"It's okay, darlin'. One of my fangs just cut you a little. I'm half demon, remember?" He didn't wait for her to answer and dived back in to catch the drop of blood dripping down onto her chin. He decided not to continue the kiss anymore and continued to plant kisses down to her neck. He stopped right where he felt the blood rushing just under the silky white skin. The desperate need to bite her had been building up all night and now it was just too much to bear and he sunk his upper fangs in her neck as gently as he could. He got so lost in the sensation of tasting her young blood that he didn't notice when his form started to shape back into him. His hair returned to look like short bright-white flames, his shoulders got wider and his whole form stretched into his 6 feet frame. The overcoat that had been mimicking Raven's cloak turned back into itself and it made a sound that could have been a sigh of relief.

Melvin stared at Du'grel with fear and hatred filling her eyes. Du'grel felt these flow from her and looked up from her neck. He didn't retreat from draining and tasting her blood, but looked into her eyes with his own unique eyes. Melvin was paralysed from shock. Du'grel carefully opened his jaws; he didn't want to rip her throat out. His fangs were thin and delicate, but they were also sharp as razors. He glanced at his hand and saw that it had changed back into his own. He rolled over on top of Melvin and trapped her hands above her head with his left hand. Melvin's neck was still bleeding and Raven's bed sheets were already stained with blood. He was going to heal her in a minute, but he wanted there to be blood on the sheets before he started the fun stuff. Just the scent alone drove him crazy.

"I was going to be gentle and considerate about this and would have allowed you to die thinking that it was Raven who you lost your virginity to, but things being as they are now…" He curved his bloodstained lips and growled deep inside his chest. His right hand caressed her fragile neck and stopped at the two puncture marks that were still bleeding and healed them in a bright flash of blue light. Melvin tried to fight her way out of Du'grel's grip when his right hand travelled down her neck and the claw on his index finger started cutting her top off. Du'grel only smiled smugly at her efforts to escape. He leaned in close and then whispered in her ear: "But don't worry, you'll love it towards the end… I'll make sure of it." He slid the remnants of her top from under her back and threw it somewhere on the floor. He leaned in to her chest and took one of her nipples in his mouth and started to tease it with his tongue. Melvin didn't want to show him that it actually felt good, but she couldn't stop a small whimper escaping her mouth. She bit down on her lip to stop any further noises from getting out. She knew what he was going to do to her and she really didn't want it and the weight of his cock pressing down on her abdomen should have disgusted her, but…

"You feel only that you are excited from it, right? You want it inside you, even though you think it is going to rip you in half, even though you are terrified of me and know that I was the one who killed your parents you still yearn for it to plunge in and out of your juicy, tight little – "

"No! No, that is just… No! I hate you, I despise you and I hope rabid dogs eat your eyes while you're still alive!" She tried to look at him menacingly, but that was close to impossible when the one pinning you down was three times your size and weighed five times more than you. Melvin would probably be crushed and smothered to death if Du'grel collapsed on her. Du'grel leaned back closer to her to lick some of the blood of her still bleeding lip. As a last act of defiance Melvin spit on his face. She hit him straight in his left eye. What happened next surprised even Du'grel himself.

Du'grel bounced off of Melvin without thinking about it and a long hiss escaped either from his mouth or it was Melvin's spit sizzling in his left eye. He stood up on the bed and he was retreating back from Melvin while furiously rubbing his left eye. He had never felt such pain and his only thought was to get away from Melvin. "Arrgh! You little bitch! You're gonna pay for that!" He kept his left hand on his left eye, since it had suddenly become very sensitive and the pressure eased the pain a little. _Damn that little bitch! The things I am going to do to her for that little stunt..._ He opened his right eye and looked down on the bed. He saw the bloodstained sheets of Raven's bed, but Melvin was nowhere to be seen. _Fuck! If she gets to the coms room I'm screwed._

**Stop her! Use your voice! Then find her and bring her back here and finish what you started! **

"No need to shout, idiot, you're in my head! I could hear you if you just whispered!"

**Why are you shouting then?**

"Because this fucking hurts like hell! She's going to die slowly for this…" Du'grel growled like a wild animal and then tried to focus his right eye to find Melvin. No one can hide from his eyes, absolutely no one. "Agh! That little cunt!"

That is if he is able to concentrate his gaze. His eyes were powerful and he could see and control other people's minds with them, but hadn't been aware of this vulnerability. His eyes power was directly linked to the amount of light they produced and his whole power was unleashed when his eyes were these pools of radiant light they were now. Seemingly this also meant that his whole power was also exposed and he could be hurt. Power crackled around his eyes and he had thought that it was because his eyes were overflowing from the power in him. Now it seemed like his eyes were just radiating the power to keep anything from touching them. He would have to be more careful from now on. Maybe he should cover his eyes with something, a pair of sunglasses maybe? He would have to think about that later. Now he had to find Melvin. If she had ran out of the room while his attention had turned away the time that she had been out of the room was three times the time that passed inside the room. What to do? First thing he would have to do is to get out of Raven's room, so that Melvin wouldn't have the time to figure out how to send a distress signal up to Raven.

"**Melvin! ****Oh my sweet and innocent Melvin! Come out and play! I do not have time for these kinds of games! You are only making things worse for yourself by trying to escape and you know that!" **He stepped down from Raven's bed and walked to the door. Melvin hadn't come out yet. He stepped through the door and felt how he stepped through the barrier in space and time his spell to stretch time had created. Did his **voice **lose its effect if his eyes were not concentrated on the target? Could be. For all he knew it was just remote hypnosis.

_Fuck, that girl got way too lucky there._ _Do you have any idea where she is?_

**No, I am as stunned as you are about the fact that you let her get away like this. Why didn't you tie her to the bed in the first place? It will probably take an hour for our eye to get back to its normal state.**

_Oh, stop your bitching already! I didn't hear you making any suggestions back there. Its good for you to say what I did wrong now, but you didn't want to tie her up either. You were way too busy playing with her mind, which I appreciate by the way; she was all fired up and confused about it! Were you able to place it in her nervous- system? If you were, make her feel pain and I'll follow the screams._

"Aaaiie!" It was Melvin's voice and Du'grel started running in the direction where it came from. It didn't sound like she was in pain, it just sounded like she was scared out of her mind by something. Du'grel focused his voice inwards and asked: _Did you do that just now?_

**Do what? **Answered a puzzled sounding voice. Du'grel didn't stop running towards Melvin's scream, but now he was worried about what could have scared Melvin. Had Raven came back down early and frightened Melvin? He couldn't see her mind anymore and he wasn't that good at using his other psychic powers. He had always trusted his eyes too much. He understood that now and he made a promise to himself to start training his brain to sense these energies. He didn't want to be blind like this. He had no idea if Raven really was behind the corner or not. Raven would just probably be too shocked by seeing Melvin in her current state to give him any orders. He would probably even have enough time to snatch Melvin and shimmer away. Yeah, he had nothing to worry about. He could still play with Melvin all he wanted if he just played his cards well.

He rounded the corner and stepped into a hallway with two doors on either side. The one on the left had a simple nametag on it that read "Beast Boy", but the one on the right was decorated with sparkling stars and all kinds of smiley faces. It took him a while to notice the words painted on the door under the colourful decorations: "Star Fire". _Star Fire? So it's not just Starfire? Her other name is Fire then, like me? What a coincidence… Guess that's why they just kept calling her "Star". Melvin's scream definitely came from either one of these rooms. She couldn't have time to run to the end of the hall in the time it took for me to get here, so she has to be in either one of these rooms. But which one, if I go into the wrong one she might be able to sneak past me and get to an alert button or something. If she pushes one of those I wouldn't be able to hear her and The Teen Titans would start beeping_ _up there__._

He stood there, completely still and trying to hear any sign of Melvin. A slight shuffle when she moved, or maybe just her agitated heartbeat, breathing, or just about anything he could. He couldn't hear anything but the subtle humming of the power cables inside the walls. He had always been sensitive to electro-magnetic radiation and his senses were specialized accordingly. He could sense electro-magnetic fields by hearing them and see just about anything, but now when he had to rely on his ears being in a high-tech building like the T-tower made every other voice get drowned into the white noise of the electronics all around him.

_Lemme see: She knows these people and she has been here before so she probably knows what these people's rooms are like. She might pick Beast Boy's room, since she could hide behind the mess that he calls order. Still she could pick Star's room for so many other reasons. For one: She's a girl and she would just feel more comfortable in that surrounding. Two: She could hope to find an alien weapon or some kind of communicator, so that she could call for help. Still…_

**Oh, for god's sakes! Just weld the other one of them shut and then check the other room. Simple. And I would check Star's room first; she's probably there.**

Du'grel opened his right eye and then walked to Beast Boy's room's door and concentrated heat at the tip of his finger. He stuck his finger between the door and wall it slid into and felt how the molten metals mixed. He pulled his finger out and released the heat energy into the air. There was a small flash of flames when the oxygen burned around the finger, but it only lasted for a second. The metals cooled and blended together when he concentrated on absorbing the heat. Frost covered the door and the floor beneath him. If Melvin really was inside Beast Boy's room, there was no way for her to get out… Expect the window, but there were nothing she could climb along and Melvin wasn't the one to commit suicide. Not yet, she still thought that she had hope. She was the type to fight and never give up.

He walked to Star Fire's door and slid it open. There were no lights on in the room and he couldn't see if Melvin was there or not. He gritted his teeth and his fists clenched. This shouldn't be a problem for him. He should be able to see into the city across the bay if he liked and read the smallest little detail of some pathetic human's life. Now he was subjected to only seeing narrow spectres of light that the normal humans eye could see. His eyes flared and just for a moment he saw the room and everything in it the way he wanted to. The unbelievable pain in his left eye made his muscles in his legs lose all power and he fell to his knees. This was the perfect opposite to the cold pain he felt after his transformations. His left eye felt like it was burning his skull away molecule by molecule, only leaving the nerve endings to scream the messages of unbelievable pain into his mind and body. The pain radiated into the left side of his body. What the fuck had that little bitch done to him?

The worst thing that could happen to him was that his would be burned away by the fire that raged inside him, that was him and now he thought that he felt how his thoughts and his perception of the world was melting away. He couldn't see the world anymore. He only felt the energies flowing around him. He fought the endless hunger for power and violence that was the flame raging inside him and his undying hate intertwined into one thing. His existence, his never-ending existence, beyond his mind was this cruel and cold thing. His mind was only a fleeting illusion put on by the one who awakened him, something to put her mind at ease on letting such a destructive force loose on the universe. He realized now that even if he would be able to keep it away momentarily or even the whole remaining time his mind had to live. His body and his power might be eternal, but his mind was not. He could decide not to hurt Raven now, but only thing this cold flame inside him had to do was wait and he would eventually die and it would release its hate upon Raven's children and everyone they loved. Wouldn't it be better if he were here to at least try and control its actions? To stop it from killing every single one Raven loved or even cared in the slightest bit. It would no doubt be ready and willing to bring down whole cities just to torment Raven.

Yes, they should actually be thanking me for doing this. I'm the lesser evil if not the hero. It is better for me to do this. At least I have a defined plan that should minimize the amount of deaths. Melvin is an unfortunate sacrifice, but a necessary one.

He drew back all of his power from his eyes and the pain decreased enough for him to function, but his thoughts were still sluggish and he really wouldn't be able to control energy for hours, he probably couldn't even shimmer. He took a deep breath in and tasted the air with his tongue. Yes, his eye had been right: Melvin was in the room. He could smell her fear and hear her rapid heartbeat. He couldn't see and if he tried to control energies in the state he was in he would explode into white flames again. Raven would be notified and he would be subdued under her words. The only reason he got out of that space station was because they didn't know that he had any kind of motive to do anything like the things he did. They thought that he was not of sound mind when he did that. He had actually picked up some amusing thoughts from Robin's mind. He was absolutely sure that Slade had something to do with this, that Slade was the one pulling his strings. They knew that he had lied to them and hid his "true" form, but they still weren't aware of his past or his hatred of Raven and the grudge he had on her blood.

He just now became aware of the fact that he was laying on the floor with his cheek on Star Fire's fluffy carpet. He pushed himself up on his hands and knees and stayed there to catch his breath. That really had taken its toll on him, he should start covering his eyes with something, he could see through about anything so he should be able to protect them well enough. When he had been a dragon he had those reptilian horizontal eyelids to cover them and he stayed unaware of his weakness.

"Actually, Melvin, I should be thanking you. You showed me my weakness and now when I know it, there is no way that anyone can stop me. They could have actually beat me with one well aimed hit." He heard how the doors closed behind them and he forced Melvin to stop. He lifted her off the floor and threw her on the bed. By the volume of the sound she made while colliding with the bed he didn't exactly hit the mattress. It sounded more like she collided with the wall before crashing down on the bed. He heard her moaning when he approached the bed. "Oh, did I hurt you? I'm sorry; I meant to kill you, My bad, really." He took of his clothes and then climbed back on Raven's bed.

"Now, lets pick up from where we left off, hmm?" Now that he was able to feel Melvin's body against his he noticed that he had fractured some of the bones in her body. Nothing life threatening, but it would be extremely painful if she even moved one bit. Keeping this in mind it was impressive that she still tried to crawl away. This would have only amused him if he would be able to see, but now he couldn't give her any changes of getting away. He sheathed one of his claws and scratched Melvin's ankle a little. Just a scratch, barely visible and it didn't even bleed, but the sufficient amount of venom was already running in her system. She was completely unable to move her body in seconds. She was even barely able to blink her eyes. She could only lie there like a doll when Du'grel ripped her pyjama pants off. He spread her legs and then leaned in to sniff her panties. Melvin felt the disgusting touch of that forked tongue pressing against the fabric of her panties and then sliding up and down slowly. The flexible appendage then slipped under her white panties and moved in and out of her vagina a little, moved back and forth, up and down, probing her, tasting her. After what seemed like hours he pulled his tongue out and raised his head up to look at Melvin. He made his tongue wiggle in front of her eyes. The forked tip was drenched. It was either his saliva or… "Ahh!" His tongue retreated into his mouth. "That freshened me up! Damn it, kid, you're a real nympho. You're fucking soaked down there."

He opened his right eye carefully while keeping his left eye closed. There was nothing but a dim light in the centre of it. The light moved in the darkness of his eye while he looked at her face and naked torso. It looked like his eye was a portal to the dark depths of the sea were fish moved their luminous lures to trap their prey. The dim light moving in his eye looked like one of those lures and Melvin felt like the prey. She had seen a skeleton of one of those deep-sea fishes on a trip to the natural museum with her parents. She had been terrified of the massive jaws of that fish. She had cried and Bobbie had smashed the display. She was lucky to be born into a relatively wealthy family. Her parents paid for the display and that was the last time they took her to a public place before she could keep Bobbie under control at all times.

"Ahh… So that's how it is. Your parents also had low-level psychic abilities. That's how they were able to invest so smart and keep the money flowing. Your daddy could read peoples minds and your mommy could see glimpses of the future, She knew where to invest and where. Your daddy then knew the real state of companys by visiting their CEO's. You're lucky to be… Oh, sorry, you _were_ lucky to be their kid. They're dead now, aren't they?" He was clearly getting something out of being so cruel to her. Did he enjoy the smell of her fear and agony? Or was it telepathic, did he sense her agony as something enjoyable? What did he say about Raven earlier? Was he doing this just to hurt Raven?

He arched his head down to bite her again. Neck, breasts, lip, whatever the target he stopped midway. The deep-sea lure moved in the darkness and locked on her eyes. It felt like spiders were climbing up into her brain through her eyes, but she still couldn't close her eyes or even blink. Du'grel's poison had done its job; she was completely paralysed now. He was looking into her mind through her eyes. The eyes really did reflect the soul. He rarely resorted to this, since the one he tried to peek into had to keep his or hers eyes open for an extended period of time and they felt it as an unbearable itch behind their eyes. He did this because he thought he heard something interesting, but it seemed like she was only trying to figure out why he was doing this. He decided to ignore the question.

He leaned in to her neck and placed his mouth on the old bite marks. He didn't sink his teeth in just yet. He slid his right hand along her side. He caressed her smooth skin and stopped only briefly to caress her small breasts. She had an incredibly smooth skin. He indulged himself in her youth. He slid off her panties and threw them somewhere on Raven's floor. That would be a shocker for her. He positioned himself between Melvin's legs and pressed the head of his cock on her pussy. He waited for his pulse to bulge his cock and then pressed his whole length into her. She let out a whine and tears ran down her face. Her muscles trembled, but that was all they could do with Du'grel's poison running in her veins. Du'grel loved the sensation of her trembling under him, even if it was from pain at the moment. He was surprised that she even could tremble. His poison should have made any kind of conscious moving impossible.

And the blood… Oh, the blood… It mixed in with the sweet fragrance of her arousal and just drove him mad. He started thrusting in and out of her while biting down on her neck and drinking and smelling her blood. It was fortunate that she was paralysed. If she were fighting back he would have been unable stop himself from killing her. It had not been this way with Jinx, but he had always known it would be with just about anyone else. Her power did something to him and some parts of him really didn't like it. They wanted to kill her just as much as Raven, but around Jinx and her power the other parts that didn't were too strong. He was a monster with no remorse, but still…

Why did it hurt so much then? He had done something to Jinx's mind, but what had she done to him in return? For one thing: he actually had felt real unrelenting pain when she said that she hated him. He had dulled the pain by turning some of his chill inwards, but before there hadn't been anything to dull.

He really couldn't believe he was thinking about stuff like that while fucking Melvin. He was fucking someone as beautiful and pure as Melvin and he was thinking about Jinx. It was true that he felt nothing beyond bodily pleasure of fucking this incredibly tight virgin pussy. He didn't feel any burning in his body or any regret about doing these things. He saw no other point in this than to hurt Raven. He felt no lust, nor he did like being so cruel. Cruelty; It had always been the easiest path to take…

**Aargh! For god's sake, stop thinking! Those things are irrelevant right now. You can sulk about them all you want later, but right now you should concentrate on Melvin here. She's the tool that is going to give us what we want.**

Du'grel stopped ravaging Melvin's body. He pulled himself out and started healing her wounds. He had almost bit through her neck and the blood flow had already weakened. Raven's bed was crimson red from her blood. The blood trickled down from the side of the bed and stained the carpet.

**What are you doing? Kill her! Fuck her to death!**

Melvin's whole body was engulfed in soft blue light. He allowed her to stay unconscious. Her whole body was covered in blood, but the wounds on her neck were rapidly healing. She was also torn badly were Du'grel had plunged in and out. She was bleeding into her abdomen and if the massive bleeding from her neck wouldn't have killed her, then the internal bleeding would have. Du'grel thought he would feel even a little twinge of guilt or remorse, but he felt absolutely. IT was the same for him if he left Melvin to bleed to death or if he saved her, spared her. Either way, he wouldn't feel anything.

"There is no reason to kill her. Actually, killing her is less beneficial to us than letting her live. If we were to kill her and leave the body for Raven to find, she would most likely fall into a deep depression instead of the all-consuming hatred towards us. She would think more of the loss of Melvin than the person that caused it. She would most probably harden her heart and fight us coldly and without emotion. She would detach herself from her friends and be alone and miserable for the rest of her existence… That is what you really want, isn't it? Simply to hurt her with no other goal in mind?"

Du'grel left Melvin to bathe in the blue light and walked to a closet in the room. He hoped to find something to cover Melvin with: a blanket, a bed sheet, a leotard, a cloak, just something to cover her with. He opened the sliding door and he found that he was looking at hundreds of alchemical ingredients lined up nicely by category, color and smell. "Hmph! She is a witch after all… But still she has to have a spare cloak or something around here somewhere…"

**What the hell are you doing! Heal her, leave her and go! Why do you bother on finding something to cover her with?**

"…If Raven finds her wrapped in one of her cloaks in that condition, wouldn't it highlight the fact that she was the one unable to protect her and thus it was her fault that Melvin got hurt?"

**You're right… but that's still just an excuse and you know it!**

"Yes, I know that." There were no other closets in the room and what point would there be to put her cloaks in a hidden closet? No, there had to be some trick to this one or she really had only one pair of those leotards… What the hell would she wear when she washed them? Nothing probably… No, there had to be a hidden compartment to this closet or something.

Du'grel moved her hand over the frames of the sliding door. He felt no weird indentations or cravings on the wood. He closed the closet and then opened it again. There were still the stinky alchemical ingredients in the closet. So it didn't work like that… He thought that there must have been another closet in the room. He walked along the wall and tried to find a hidden switch to open the hidden closet where she apparently kept her clothes. He found nothing. He returned back to the sliding door closet and closed it. He studied the door itself and found something interesting: three lines of runes written with invisible ink. The bottom line was slightly luminescent and it read "Alchemy".

"Ah! I'm impressed. This must be here to stop Beast Boy from sniffing her panties or something. Clever. Now lets see…" The bottom line read Alchemy and it was glowing ever so slightly. That must mean that that form of the closet was active, if he would just be able to activate the line of runes that read "Clothing". Maybe he would just have to say the runes out loud to activate the appropriate line.

"Those are written in Azarathian, so Azarathian it would be… Wait, I got them in here somewhere…" He searched his mind for Azarathian language. He knew that he had it stored somewhere. He had absorbed dozens of Azarathians along with their knowledge. "Clothing… Clothing… Ah, it was _silia._"

The door started glowing brightly at the moment he let out the word. The frames creaked from the force of the spell Raven had cast on her closet. It stopped after just a few seconds but the afterimages of the light stayed in the air and swirled into weird shapes. Du'grel opened the sliding door again and found dozens of Cloaks, leotards and those soft leather boots she wore in neat little rows. "Creepy…" He snatched one of the blue cloaks and closed the door. He turned towards the blood-soaked bed and already took a step towards Melvin when a thought struck him _Three lines of runes: Alchemy, Clothing and… _What was the third one?

He really shouldn't prolong his stay here. If the Teen Titans returned now, he would not have any means to escape them and he would be under the commands of Raven's words. He should wrap things up here and leave as fast as he could. The third line was irrelevant; he should just forget it and leave. "I should, but I know that I won't." He quickly walked back in front of the closet and followed the line of runes with his finger. The runes were not familiar to him and they felt weird when he touched them. The intendments felt different than the runes he saw. "An illusion spell? Now this is getting interesting. What does she have hidden behind two sets of spells?" He kept his finger on the runes and traced them one by one. "Three runes… Three simple Azarathian alphabetical marks… This is not even Azarathian! Let's see: that would be an F… and that would be about the same as a U…" Three letters. F, U and…

"Fun? That's what's inside here?" He had said the password and the closet started to change its insides. The wood creaked and the light fluttered away. The doors looked the same as they did during the closet's other forms, but the first line of the three was now glowing brightly. It wasn't dim like the others had been. Was this to remind Raven to change the closet back into one of the other two? The runes were blinking and they also whined slightly. There was no way that a person who lived in the same room could ignore it. Now Du'grel was really interested. He slammed the sliding door open and then let out a small chuckle.

"Now I know why Lust has so much pull in her head. Who would have known that the quiet little Raven had something like _this _hidden in her closet?" He left the sliding door open and walked over to Melvin. He reached down with the cloak in his hands to put it over her to cover her body before he lost his newfound restraint. As soon as he was in arms reach from Melvin she shot up and tried stab him into the eye with her finger. Du'grel didn't even bother on reacting. Melvin's finger met an unyielding barrier about a inch away from Du'grel's eye and there was a dry sounding crack when Melvin's fingers dislocated and fractured in three different places. Du'grel calmly grabbed her hand and set it above Raven's cloak that he had spread over her like a blanket. He kept her hand still with his other hand and then set the fingers in place one by one. Every finger in her right hand had dislocated and fractured to some extent, but the damage was worst on the index and middle finger; they were the ones that hit the barrier around Du'grel's eye.

"Wh- who are you? How…" Melvin was a low-grade telepath and now she had noticed that the cold and cruel feeling she had sensed from him before had changed into something else. She just knew that this was not the same person that had done those horrible things to her. She still that he was cold, but it now there was no cruelty rolling off of him. There was a sense of sadness instead. She was still as confused when Du'grel reached out his hand and touched her forehead. There was a flash and Melvin lost consciousness. The last thing she acknowledged where the words he said quietly.

"Do not forgive me…"

* * *

**By the way: The thing that scared Melvin in Star Fire's room was Silkie. That wretched worm caused her to be found so easily and doomed her to... well, you know what happened.  
**

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	12. Chapter 12

**It took a lot more time to write this than I thought it would. It was just extremely hard for me to find a place to stop and if the story or the characters seem a little more forced or out of character than usual, then it's probably because of that. Sorry for taking so long.**

**Crazy Laughter**

**Chapter 12**

The rocks were damp and slippery. It had been raining outside and the water flowed through the soil and cracks in the rocks. Deeper in the cave was luminous fungus that gave an eerie greenish glow. It grew in colonies and they were bunched together around the cave's walls. In the complete darkness of the cave they looked like eyes of nocturnal beasts and someone with only a flashlight could easily think that otherworldly creatures surrounded them. The danger was all psychological though. If you were distracted by your own delusions you could easily slip and crack your head open on the rocks.

"I have a new kind of appreciation for Beast Boy now. The fact that he visited you down here so many times on his own is impressive. If I would have anything less than my own eyes I would have probably slipped and injured myself badly. Even with a flashlight climbing down here would be tough... Of course there is that he can see in the dark like nocturnal animals and he could always turn into a bat…" Du'grel fell into a silence and absently kicked the withered flowers and memorial tokens down into the lake of solidified magma. He walked down to the edge of the cliff that stretched out into the centre of the cave. He looked down into the darkness below. "That is were Slade was thrown into isn't it? That spot down there with a slightly different colour. Damn, you really beat the hell out of him. That's all that is left out of his original body, huh? A little molten piece of his mask in a lake of solidified magma?" He fell quiet again and walked over to the prone figure on a pedestal made out of the same looking rock that the figure was. It was only skin deep though. He saw the life that was desperately clinging to the statue. Du'grel sat down in front of the statue and leaned in closer to read the plate (also seemingly made out of stone).

TERRA

A TEEN TITAN

A TRUE FRIEND

"Hmm? You were a Teen Titan, I know that much (and more), but Beast Boy cramped that true friend part in there. None of the others really thought you could be trusted, even after you sacrificed yourself for the city, and them. A little ungrateful isn't it? I think so…" He looked around the cave in the awkward silence. "You know, with a couple of decorative decisions this really could be a comfy little hideout… Nah, who am I kidding, it's not fun to talk to someone who can't answer you. Would you like to be able to move again?"

The whole cave shook suddenly and a deep rumble rose from the darkness. "Yeah, thought as much. Well, I'll just get this over with." Du'grel stood back up and did a couple of stretches. "Damn it, I'm all stiff from using too much magic the other day. You know Melvin? Probably not, but anyways, I had to trap her in a warp in time and that was something that really took it out of me. Plus, she stabbed me in the eye, so it's no surprise that I couldn't get up for three days. I had a splitting headache, you see. I also had to refrain from using any of my powers for a whole week, because of the damage she was able to inflict on my eye."

Du'grel stopped his stretches with a relieved sigh. He straightened his back and held out his right hand to his side. "I warn you: This is going to be creepy." A dim light started to swirl away from his palm. It looked like golden translucent mist. It swirled and gathered around his hand. There was also a loud hum in the air coming of the 

mist. The hum intensified with the light as it got brighter and brighter, lighting up the whole cave. The hum caused peddles to move across stony floor and larger boulders to shake out of the walls. The whole cave rumbled and shook like in a earthquake. In addition the whole cave was starting to turn extremely cold and frost now covered the damp stones and they were even more dangerous to climb. The cold front moved from the walls of the cave and towards the two figures at the centre of the cave: one of them being a white haired boy with dark sunglasses and a hooded black overcoat, and the other being a statue of a girl with long hair and big eyes dressed in broken armour and bandages. She had her arms spread and looked like she was screaming when she turned to stone. Du'grel knew of the circumstances, but he still thought that the pose was ridiculous.

The frost crept closer and closer and the light brightened and brightened at the same pace. When the frost was just about to touch Du'grel's feet, Du'grel clenched his fist and then opened it again. He did it again and again until the light could do it on its own.

THU-THUMP! THU-THUMP! THU-THUMP!

The stone plate Beast Boy had placed at the base of the living statue that was Terra, fell to the floor and broke from the force of the sound. The whole cave jumped along with the steady thumping and Terra was close to falling from her pedestal. The frost that had avoided the statue carefully now rushed up the pedestal and froze the soles of the statues feet on it. It retreated again like it was a whole living being in its self. It was an extension of Du'grel's will, but Du'grel's mind was in shambles and he didn't know who or what was in control and when. He had learned that Raven's little multiple personality problems were nothing compared to him.

Du'grel kept the beating light at arm's length and the frost kept on closing on him slowly. "I know that Raven knows of this spell, why do you think she never tried it on you? She doesn't want you brought back to live, whether she admits it or not. She simply doesn't care about you enough. And there also is something she… hmm… wants and something you could take away." The frost reached the soles of his black army boots and the light started to crackle sparks and jolts of energy all around it. Tendrils of the golden light started to form and reach towards Terra and climb up Du'grel's arm. Du'grel swept the frail looking tendrils away and then guided them towards Terra. The light kept on beating like a living heart and the tendrils of light grew an inch or two with every heartbeat. After Du'grel redirected the thirty-first tendril towards Terra, the golden mass of light stopped trying to reach him and put the longest of its tendrils on the ground. More and more tendrils wrapped around the frail tendrils that touched the ground and within minutes the mass of light had grown frail looking pair of legs. They sprouted from about meter long gathering of tendrils that looked like a tube and it had started to slightly curve and form sections. From around the centre of this tube a horizontal gathering of tendrils that circled around the light sprouted and then met and formed a small plate.

The legs, ribcage and spine. The tendrils that had reached out towards Terra started to form and combine into shapes like the ones reaching the ground. The tips of the tendrils formed into skeletal fingers and then the transformation progressed up the arm to form the bones of the arm. It wasn't long until the shoulders, shoulder blades, hips and feet formed and it looked like Du'grel was holding a headless skeleton made out of golden light. The beating of the light quickened and slowly some tendrils sprouted from the spine and started forming into a rough shape of a sphere. When more and more tendrils sprouted the shape of a skull started forming. Eyeholes, mouth and nose were left without the golden tendrils of light, as they were not bones.

Du'grel raised his left hand and started muttering words that twisted the air as they were spoken aloud. The form of the golden skeleton became hazy and a bright blue light lit into the palm of his left hand. The light fluttered and dimmed occasionally like a flame, but it seemed to be like a pinprick into a world of light. Du'grel shifted his legs so that he was facing the skeleton of golden light and raised his left hand into eye level. With one smooth movement he pulled his right hand out of the golden skeleton and slammed his left hand against the ribcage.

There was a huge flash of light, but when the light slowly faded away Du'grel was holding an imitation of Terra's body by the neck. It was made out of pure white light, but the body shape and hairstyle were the same. Her big blue eyes were only empty pools of blue light on the imitation body.

"The problem with your transformation to stone was that you used up _all_ of your power. Since your powers were also controlled by your emotions, then they must have leeched their power directly from your soul. So, when you calmed this little volcano with your powers you also used up your souls power reserve and your body was affected by your power. With the power from your soul, you controlled the earth, but now when your soul was tapped out the last bit of power you used affected your body and you became one with the element you controlled. In other words: your soul was tapped out, but your body and mind survived by becoming one with the earth." Du'grel raised the doll closer to the statue. "This here, is a replacement soul I made for you. Making a soul out of nothing is impossible of course, but the information of the structure of your soul is in your body and mind. Now, without further adieu…"

Du'grel stepped on the same pedestal with the statue and hung the imitation body right in front of the figure. When he kept it close to the statue for a minute or so, the arms made out of light took the same pose as the statue. After a couple more minutes the imitation body made out of light had the exact same pose as the rocky statue behind it. Du'grel let go of the imitation body and stepped down from the pedestal. The golden light still shone through from the chest of the imitation body. The thumping was muffled, but the light still flashed in the pace of peaceful heart beating.

"Hah! You'll have to stay completely still now... Not like you have a choice in the matter." Du'grel set his right foot on the pedestal and took the imitation body by the shoulders. He carefully opened his palms and pushed the imitation body into the statue. Sparks flew and power crackled, but Du'grel forced the shoulders of the imitation body to set into the statue. When the shoulders settled inside the stone and the light they shone was reduced to a slight sheen on the surface of the rock the rest of the imitation body settled in the stone on its own. Du'grel took a step back, but now he lifted the statue down with him. He walked back on the cliff that connected to the pedestal and entered the entrance to Slade's old hideout. Everything was covered in rubble, but you could see high-tech equipment lying around and frames of metallic slide doors that could take a shell out of a tank and keep on working.

Raven had ripped them out of their frames, Star Fire had blown a couple out of their frames too and Cyborg had his share too. Beast Boy and Robin were just in the way before they got to Slade and Terra. Du'grel really did wonder why Slade even bothered with them, the doors that is. He had absorbed Slade's intellect, but it was hard to extract it out of his insanity. He had an obsession for control and he loved to manipulate people. He was a psychopath and he wanted to turn the world to resemble the landscape of his soul. But, even though he was a self-centred psychopath, he was a genius and Du'grel needed to absorb an earthly way of logic and when he met Slade he thought he could rid the world of one dangerous psychopath and get what he needed.



He snapped out of his thoughts when the statue of Terra started vibrating in his hands. "Shit! Sorry, I'll get you out of there in no time." He set the statue of Terra in front of him and took a step back. He reached his right hand out to his right side. There was a bright flash of light and when the light dissipated Du'grel was holding a sledgehammer as big as he was. He set his left hand on the end of the handle and then held the sledgehammer like a baseball bat. "It requires an incredible amount of force to break you out of the earth you trapped yourself into. Without a certain person that I… met, I now have the required strength to free you." Du'grel swung the sledgehammer like a baseball bat in amazing speed.

BOO-O-O-OONGH!

The sledgehammer collided with Terra's chest, but the statue of Terra didn't move even an inch. Du'grel pulled back the sledgehammer and raised the crushed head in front of his eyes. He looked at the sledgehammer and then turned his eyes to the point of impact. The sledgehammer crumbled to dust. "Hmm, unexpected… It seems that I was able to crack the rock covering you, but you are still not able to break free. This shouldn't have happened. Are you sure you even want to come back to life? It could be that your doubt keeps your body from returning to flesh and bones. Well, I didn't do all of this just for your doubtful little mind would make it all in vane…" Du'grel cleared his throat and straightened his back. **"Break through the chains of earth holding you down and come back to life, Terra. I command you to do so and you will obey." **Du'grel took a couple of deep breaths and cleared his throat again. He reached out his hand and tapped the crack on the statue's chest with his finger. The crack spread out across the statue and forked out into small and large cracks. The pieces of rock started falling off and exposed pale skin. Du'grel tapped Terra's forehead to shake of the pieces of rock covering her eyes. The rock covering her hair fell of and her fair hair fell on her naked back. She was completely naked; as the spell Du'grel had cast didn't restore the broken armor she had been wearing. Du'grel grabbed her shoulders again and shook her to clear out the last bits of rock clinging on to her skin.

"S-t-o-o-o-o-p… t-h-a-a-t…" Terra said while her hair trashed around her face wildly and the dust flying off her skin covered them both in a grey cloud. Terra walked out of the cloud coughing and rubbing her eyes. Tears trailed down her cheeks and washed out the dust on her cheeks, making the rest of her face look even dirtier. Her legs gave out under her and she fell to the floor. "Auh! My butt cough My butt hurts…" Her Face lit up; she pinched her thigh and smiled even wider. She slapped her face and laughed out loud. "I can feel! I can see, I can move! Oh, thanks a bunch, mister!" The cave was pitch black, and since Du'grel didn't need any artificial light he hadn't brought any with him. Terra couldn't see Du'grel, even though he was standing only a couple meters away from her. "Mister? Mister dark and gloomy, are you there?" Terra shivered on the cold stone floor. Du'grel's frost had just taken any warmth out of the air and the rock, so the cave was freezing cold. Her teeth started to rattle and her skin was already on goose bumps. Her lips were turning blue.

"Oh yeah, sorry, really sorry. You can't see me, can you? Wait a second; I'll get us some light." After a few seconds of complete silence Du'grel threw a sphere of the same kind of golden light up into the ceiling. The sphere stayed up in the ceiling and let out a quiet hum when it hovered over their heads. "Yeah, that should do for now. Hi there, Terra. Are enjoying being able to move again?"

Terra looked up at Du'grel and quickly clenched her legs together and tried to cover herself with her hands. "You're a guy!" She screamed as her face turned beet red.

"Yes, I am aware of that fact. What of it?" Du'grel asked with an even tone and tilted his head slightly. His eyes were hidden behind his sunglasses, so Terra couldn't know what part of her body he was looking at. She was sure that he was staring at places he shouldn't have been and she reacted accordingly.

"Pervert!" Her eyes shone yellow and pieces of rubble started to bombard Du'grel. He hadn't expected this and raised his hands to protect his eyes. His body could take just about any punishment, but now he knew how much of a weakness his eyes were. He was able to stop most of the rocks from hitting his face, but on particularly large boulder hit him in the corner of the eye and his sunglasses flew out of the cave and broke at the bottom of the cavern where Terra had been trapped all those years. He turned his eyes towards Terra. He had to smile when he saw the shocked expression on her face. Her face turned pale and frightened for some reason. Must have been because she saw his fangs, or was she really that freaked out because of his eyes?

"My, my, you are a lively one indeed. As you can see I'm not exactly human myself, so my libido isn't on overdrive like the youngling's of this little globe." He took off his overcoat and offered it to Terra. "I apologise, you must be freezing. Here, put this on. It should keep you warm" Terra didn't hold out a hand to take the coat. She kept on staring into Du'grel's eyes. Du'grel got tired on holding the coat in front of a person who was in some kind of trance, so he walked over to Terra and threw the coat over her shoulders. She snapped out of her thoughts when she felt the soft and warm fabric touch her skin. She flinched away when she noticed how close Du'grel was. "Ah! How did you get there? Stop sneaking around you pervert!"

Du'grel raised his hands in a sign of surrender and took a couple steps back. He sat down on the ground across Terra. He kept his eyes locked on Terra's and this time Terra didn't sink into them. She was looking over his facial features, as if searching for something. Her eyes then darted to his hands and then trailed up his arms. After she had almost strained her neck while trying to look behind his back without getting up she finally asked the question she had been trying to find a answer to.

"Are you related to lizards in some way? I have this feeling that you seem somehow reptilian, but I really can't quite place it." Du'grel's eyes widened. She was the first person he ever met that actually said what they thought and didn't try to be subtle about it and come up with some roundabout way of asking him. He decided to also be honest with her in return.

"Yes, I do have some reptilian features in me. I have adopted parts of the genome of a dragon in order to keep the fire in me, that is me, in control. You might have already noticed my fangs, but there are also the poisoned claws in my fingers and my forked tongue that give that part of my genome away."He noticed how Terra leaned to the side trying take a look behind him. "No, I do not have a tail in my humanoid form." He unsheathed the claws in his right hand and showed the forked tip of his tongue. "Now you tell me about your origins. Who did you inherit your abilities from? Where are you from? Do you have any sisters or brothers? Pick the question you would like to answer, we have time." Du'grel kept his eyes on Terra and his excitement shone through his features. Terra wrapped Du'grel's coat tighter around her body. It warm and soft and made Terra feel drowsy. She had been awake for years trapped inside a statue, so it was to be expected that she would be sleepy. She yawned widely and flexed her muscles under the warm cover of Du'grel's coat. Her eyelids felt like they weighted a ton and it was getting impossible for her to keep her eyes open. Du'grel watched all this with interest. This girl was surprisingly lively considering the fact that she had been made out of stone just a couple of minutes ago. He sat there quietly and allowed her to fall asleep. Her body started to slowly lean towards the floor. The thump would wake her and that thought filled Du'grel with horror for some reason. She would just probably shout and hurl large boulders at him with her powers. Pain wasn't something he was afraid of, but he really didn't like it. Plus, he didn't like the feeling he felt coming off of her mind when she was mad at him. He made a couple of quick hand signals and his coat supported Terra's body and settled her on the floor gently. Du'grel stood up and after looking at the sleeping face of Terra for a moment he made a couple more hand signals and the sleeves of the coat raised her head slightly and the hood gathered under her head as a makeshift pillow.

Du'grel stepped over her carefully and walked over to the ruined doorway. He stopped in mid-step as he felt the emotions suddenly shining from Terra's mind. Was she awake? What could have caused this crushing sadness? Did he do something just now? Did he remind her of something? Du'grel looked over her shoulder and saw Terra's sleeping form wrapped in his coat. She had moved slightly, but when he looked a little deeper into her mind he saw that she was just dreaming, but for her feelings of regret and sadness to shine through from her dreams, they had to be crippling if she thought about them while awake.

"Slade really messed up her life…" The words escaped his mouth before he could stop them. The feelings he saw and felt in Terra's mind where crushing, but somehow he just couldn't turn his eyes away. His eyes bored deeper into her mind without any conscious effort and he saw the thoughts flying around her mind while she dreamed.

" _I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm sorry for everything I've done…"_ Du'grel wondered what kind of dreams sprouted from those thoughts, but decided to turn his eyes away. Dreams were a strange thing. He never had any, but they created a whole parallel world inside the person's mind and if Du'grel were to go into someone else's dreams, it would be very hard to get out. It didn't matter what kind of mind Du'grel saw while the person was awake, but the world the person's mind created when sleeping could be very different and his control through understanding would be lost. His eyes had to see before his mind could understand and his mind had to understand before his power could control.

Body, mind and the soul, the humans in this planet could call it the holy trinity, but whatever you call It, it is useless if one of the three is taken away. I'm walking on a knife's edge. My mind is tearing itself apart; my soul is a fire that threatens to consume my mind and body. It doesn't help that my body is almost indestructible when my mind and soul are fighting against it.

Du'grel sighed and then shook his head to clear it of the inconvenient thoughts. He didn't have any reason to think about these thoughts any further. He had finally set a goal for himself and that would be the only thing he thought about for now. What came after that, he didn't know, but he would think about it then, not before. That was what kept his mind stable and he clung to it desperately. He looked up at the ceiling and the orb of light he had created. He dimmed the light with a whispered word and walked away after giving his coat one last signal. After he stepped across the threshold of the ruined doorway of the only way in or out of the cave where Terra was sleeping, air started to waver around him and his form started to blur around the edges. The shimmering air seemed to bend out of shape and wrap around Du'grel. He disappeared with absolutely no sound, but there was a slight breeze when air rushed in to fill the vacuum left in the place where Du'grel had stood just a mere second ago. He had to goa nd find some food for her; she was bound to be hungry after being a rock for years.

_**Inside Raven's head:**_

__

Raven's different sides where lounging around after fulfilling their fleshly desires. They were all more or less like raven, so they preferred keep quiet and look up into the sky or read a book, they were now simply enjoying each other's company. Happy and Excited were blabbering on up in one of the marshmallow trees. Timid was sitting cross-legged at the base of the tree and looking up at Happy, timidly of course. She was too scared to go up next to Happy. Excited would want her to join in on the conversation and ask her awkward and (duh!) excited questions. She really didn't want that, so she stayed down at the base of the tree and looked at Happy's smiling face.

The other sides of Raven looked over at them and shared the latest gossips about the couple and their antics. They were visiting Happy and Timid for an orgy and now when it was over once and a while someone caught a floating giant fruit and shared it with the ones around her. The whole atmosphere was sleepy and calming.

"How do you think they met? I can't imagine the two of them having any similar hobbies." Homicidal asked Suicidal. They were a couple that had sought each other out after Du'grel freed their way of thinking from the One True Raven on the top.

Homicidal had a knife on Suicidal's throat and she pinched her clit occasionally. These kinds of games were ordinary for them. Suicidal flinched every time Suicidal pinched her and the razor-sharp knife cut a little deeper. After a couple of minutes it got hard for her to pinch her clit, since her hands were drenched in Suicidal's juices. She pulled out her fingers from suicidal and set herself aside a panting Suicidal. She slowly licked each one of her fingers clean. She handed the knife to Suicidal and watched when she gave herself an orgasm with the handle of the knife.

"Huh? Wha…" The other sides of Raven that were gathered around Suicidal and Homicidal had been so absorbed into their show that they forgot to answer the question. "Oh yeah, Du'grel hooked them up. He forced them into the same room for an hour and when he let them out they were trying to suffocate each other with their tongues. Happy probably couldn't stand seeing Timid being timid and tried to cheer her up. I've heard that they make quite a amount of noise when they get to fucking each others brains out. I hear it sounds like a Finnish whorehouse on Christmas eve. This reminds me of a funny little gag I heard a while back. It's about a finn, a swede and a Norwegian walking in a dark forest an- Auh!"

Talkative was interrupted by Sneaky sticking the sheath of her samurai sword halfway up her ass. The sheath was slightly curved, like the blade, and lubricated with Suicidal's juices. She started to slide it in and out of her ass to keep her from getting a coherent word out of her mouth. Sneaky had done what the others gathered around her had been planning to do: Interrupt Talkative before she got into one of her little stories. Interested didn't like the fact that Sneaky was pleasuring her girlfriend and told Sneaky to hand over the sheath to her. Sneaky left the sheath sticking out from Talkative's ass, but took her sword with her. She walked away to find Kleptomaniac, who had stolen her Ninja forehead guard the last time they met.

"Staying on the topic: What do you think that he's trying to accomplish with all of this?" Interested asked the others. She was now sliding the sheath of Sneaky's sword inside Talkative's ass. Talkative was moaning and moving with the sheath. Interested knew how much Talkative liked to take it up the ass and was quick to take the sheath from Sneaky's hands and pleasure her girlfriend herself.

"Don't know, don't care." Rude said while groping Intelligence. Intelligence had her eyes closed and was leaning her head back on Rude's shoulder. Intelligence opened her eyes and looked at the others. "You mean you haven't figured it out yet?" She sounded incredibly smug and that annoyed the others. The only thing stopping Homicidal from throwing her knife, still slippery from Suicidal's juices, in her throat was Motherly's calming words and the threat that she wouldn't get any cookies.

So, when Homicidal was munching on a cookie Intelligence was safe to continue talking. "It should be obvious. Just look at what he is doing: He freed us from being Raven's little meditation tools and then asked us to make her doubt her sanity, make her lose her control over her emotions. Are you getting it now? What would anyone accomplish by making Raven lose control over her emotions? Think about it, think for a change." The other sides of Raven looked at Intelligence menacingly. Every one of them was thinking of different ways of killing her. Homicidal was looking back and forth between the knife in her left hand and the half-eaten cookie in her right hand. Motherly pulled out a tray filled with brownies and Homicidal hid the knife back into her cloak. Rude sensed the murderous intent in the air and spoke up. "Ignore her condescending tone and think about what she just said. I think she's right and for me to agree with someone is as unbelievable as Intelligence here getting a tongue piercing or a tattoo."

True, Rude would normally disagree with just about anything just to piss people off. The fact that she actually agreed with something with anyone meant that it was just as undeniably true as her own existence. They fell into a contemplative silence. One by one understanding lit up in their eyes. Intelligence waited until all of them had figured it out before opening her mouth again. Well, trying to at least, any coherent words didn't come out since Rude hadn't stopped groping her and she forgot all about the conversation.

"You can't mean…" Surprised and Bewildered flinched away from Sneaky who had appeared behind them. She had her forehead guard back and Kleptomaniac in a headlock. Seemingly she was into sticking stuff into other peoples asses, since the blade of her sword was sticking out from Kleptomaniac's ass. The handle was almost up to the guard in her ass and Kleptomaniac whimpered from the pain. Unlike Talkative, she didn't like anything in her ass. The other Raven's glanced at them and mumbled a "Hello" to Sneaky. Kleptomaniac was not very popular. They turned their attention to Intelligence who had started breathing heavily. Rude hadn't stopped groping Intelligence and now Rude was tampering around with her vagina through her yellow leotard. She was getting excited and leaned on Rude with her whole body.

"What is it? What is it! Tell me! Tell me!" Childish interrupted when she just couldn't wait any longer, which was about three and a half seconds. She was one of the rare stupid Ravens, but her sunny disposition made up for her idiocy and almost all of the other Ravens liked her. She was also one of the few that didn't think about any of them sexually. She was like a little sister to them and Motherly had took her under her wing, even now she was munching on one of Motherly's brownies. Motherly was sitting next to her and wiped her face clean lovingly every time she sat still long enough for her to do so. Motherly and Childish were an item now. They were not like the other Ravens and held no sexual thoughts for each other; they were more like mother and daughter. Of course both of them were the same age, but still you couldn't mistake them for each other. Motherly calmed Childish and then looked over to Logic.

"Well, from what I understand from Intelligence's innuendo and what I had gathered myself is that Du'grel's goal is…" Logic raised his hand up towards the sky and pointed at a group of floating rocks in the sky. The other Ravens gasped when they saw what Logic was pointing at. It was the piece of rock that Anger was chained into. She was trashing against her restraints and lately she had been dangerously close to breaking free. They knew that something traumatizing had to have happened to the True Raven for anger to get so much power.

"What? Trigon! Is he going to summon Trigon? Is that what you're saying? That's ridiculous! What could he possibly think to gain from that?" Motherly screamed frantically and held Childish close to her chest.

Logic shrugged and then looked at Motherly straight into the eyes. "It seems so, but are you really ready to go back into being Raven's little meditation aid. I know that she used you as a shoulder to cry on, before she met her new friends that is. Now you have been lonely after that, right? You had no one to comfort before he arrived. Do you want to return to that loneliness?" Motherly squeezed Childish against her chest tighter. Childhish tried to struggle out of Motherly's arms because her grip was squeezing the air out of her lungs. Her face was already turning blue when Motherly noticed and frantically started apologising. They all had been affected by Du'grel, he had given them something that made their lives that much more enjoyable. They were terrified of the chance that they might lose it. They had a life now and losing it was just as terrifying to them as it was to anyone else. They knew that Du'grel had given them this life in order to have something to manipulate them with, but they didn't care.

" But if Trigon is resurrected and called onto this world what will happen to us?" Childish asked with her clear and innocent voice. The other Raven's looked at her in surprise. So she had been listening this whole time and had even understood what they said.

"If anyone of us dies, so does Raven. Du'grel is bound to protect Raven and keep her from harm, to a certain extent, so he has to make sure that we keep on living. He probably has some dealings with Trigon himself. He seems to be a half-demon, so he might just want to kill Trigon, some stupid demonic family dispute or something. He seems strong enough that he could actually win. Don't worry, kid, we'll be fine." Logic answered. It seemed strangely… un-logical for her, but the words were said just to sooth Childish. Her lower lip had started quivering and none of the Ravens had the heart to see her cry. The truth was that they didn't know what was going to happen to them, but they all owed Du'grel too much to go against him.

They all looked up at the floating piece of rock in the sky and the ominous crimson light that shone from Anger's eyes.

**Inside the Hive five's new lair:**

CRASH!

"What the hell was that?" Billy Numerous asked at the same time with his clones. They had been trying to beat Gizmo in Super Monkey Madness: Mayhem edition when the ruckus interrupted him from losing. He had five of his clones trying to beat the snot out of Gizmo, but the 12-year old menace was beating his virtual monkeys around like a bunch of piñatas with his own virtual baboon.

"Mammoth?" Gizmo asked. Mammoth was known to be able to break even the most unexpected things without even trying. "It did come from the kitchen." And he usually did it in the kitchen. His messed up physiology drove him into a feeding frenzy at times and every one of the Hive Five knew to steer away from him when that happened. Inanimate objects like the refrigerator where not so lucky. Mammoth lost the brainpower needed to open the fridges door when he was in his feeding frenzy, so he just ripped the whole fridge open.

"I'm right here, runt." Mammoth rumbled while getting up from his nap on one of the large couches around the massive wall of TV's. He was hit in the back of the head with one of Gizmo's mini-rockets.

"I told you to stop calling me that!" He had his game controller in his hands and the tech-backpack was walking over to him on long spider legs. He had finally made the game controller wireless and he could control any machine he made or modified with it. "Anyways, if it wasn't Mammoth then we should check it out." He started walking over to the door to the kitchen on his spider-legs.

"Wait!" Billy Numerous, the original, got up from the couch and had a fearful expression on his face. "What if it's Jinx?" This possibility stopped Gizmo in his tracks and made Mammoth flinch. Jinx had been moody lately and everyone present had got a taste of her when she was in a bad mood, which was about always. Nowadays they tried their best to stay out of her way. After Gizmo had been beaten to a pulp for the fifth time he checked the surveillance records from the day when Du'grel came to knocking on their backdoor and now he knew that Jinx was moody because she had broken up with her boyfriend. Yeah, yeah, it was a terrible tragedy, but there was no reason to take it out on him.

"I'll check…" Gizmo hit a series of buttons on his controller and the huge TV on the wall had a three dimensional map of their lair. He commanded the system to show the energy imprints of everyone in the lair and the pink one was on one of the lower levels moving around. "Good, she's in her room." Billy Numerous sighed out of relief and sat back down on the couch.

"Who's that white spot in the kitchen then?" Mammoth asked and pointed out the single bright white spot on the map. It happened to be in the kitchen, so it was safe to presume that whoever it was, he or she had caused the noise. Gizmo zoomed in closer and now the spot cleared into a man-shaped figure that was standing in the kitchen. Gizmo changed the three dimensional map into a live feed from the security cameras in the kitchen. He was sitting on the kitchen counter, looking thoughtful. He was staring intently at the fridge and muttering words to himself.

"Who's that? And what is he doing in our kitchen?" Mammoth didn't recognise Du'grel without his concealing overcoat and was more concerned at what this person in their kitchen was planning to do to the food in there. When Du'grel had been here before he had used his shape shifting abilities to look like Jinx and stole Mammoth's breakfast. A little while later he had had his black overcoat on when he beat the hell out of Seemore for peeping on Jinx taking a shower, and when he beat the other members of the Hive Five in the process. Mammoth hadn't seen Du'grel's face before, but he would recognize his eyes if he were to rush into the kitchen. Gizmo was the only one who had seen Du'grel's face and knew how dangerous he was.

"That's Jinx's ex-boyfriend. Remember, the guy who beat you twice in the same day?" Gizmo enlightened Mammoth. They all did remember him. He had beat each and every one of them without even breaking a sweat. While he had been beating Seemore for his perverted nature, he had only looked at Gizmo with those glowing eyes of his and his tech-backpack froze over and lost all power. Kid Notorious got close to him with his teleportation, but Du'grel just countered it by teleporting behind him himself and then knocking him unconscious. When Mammoth charged at him he had just swatted him away like a piece of trash. Later Mammoth described it as "very cold" and that it felt like his forward momentum was thrown backwards. It surprised Gizmo that Mammoth knew of the word "momentum", so he checked his records on Internet access and found out that Mammoth had looked it up just to use it. Guess he didn't like being stupid and tried to educate himself.

On the TV on the wall Du'grel jumped down from the kitchen counter and walked over to the fridge. He placed his hands on either side of the refrigerator and then raised it on one shoulder. It didn't look like it strained him too much to support a industrial size refrigerator on his shoulder.

"What the hell is this guy?" Gizmo asked in awe. It would be a strain even for Mammoth to raise the fridge over his head, but this guy handled it like it was made out cardboard. The air around Du'grel started to waver and then his form shimmered away when space and time twisted. Gizmo felt something like a slight breeze behind him and heard the muffled sound of glass tingling together. He slowly turned around and saw Du'grel standing behind him. No, he couldn't be standing behind him. He was on his spider-legs and his head was ten feet from the floor. Gizmo looked down to Du'grel's legs and saw that he was levitating in mid-air with the fridge still supported on one shoulder.

"Is this powered by normal electricity, or do you have some high powered fission reactor in this place or something?" He said while looking Gizmo straight in the eye. His eyes shone bright as ever, but Gizmo noticed something that looked like a small crack in his left eye. When he didn't answer for a while Gizmo saw how Du'grel's eyes focused on something behind his eyes and felt his presence in his mind. He felt it as something of a mental equivalent of a cold breeze rummaging through his mind.

"Thank you. I'll be taking this. I'll pay it back in due time. I promise." After he said this he disappeared into shimmering air.

"What? Did he just steal our fridge? What's the point in that?" The six Billy Numerous' stood up and asked in unison. It took a while for reality to hit Mammoth.

"The fridge! Our food! Our pie, our pride! Why are you so cruel god, why?!" Mammoth shouted when the idea that their fridge was gone hit him. There was no food, there were no beverages and thus there was no hope. At least for him, that is.

**Back at the cave:**

Terra woke from her sleep with a start. He had fallen asleep with a guy she barely knew and who she especially didn't trust. She sighed out of relief when she noticed that she hadn't been gagged and tied up to a bed. She noticed that she still had his coat on him and he had seemingly set the hood of the coat as a pillow for her. The magical light was also dimmed or it had dimmed over time. Maybe he wasn't such a bad guy after all. It struck her that she hasn't even asked him for his name. Now when she thought back she realised that she had been quite rude towards him. She felt a little bad for that. He had freed her from her stony prison, but the way she had talked about Raven and the Teen Titans suggested that he was trying to manipulate her. It didn't matter if his words were true. Terra just couldn't stand being manipulated anymore. Slade had done enough of that for a couple of lifetimes.

It was really ungrateful of her to leave without even knowing her saviours name, but he seemed kind of creepy and his eyes made her skin crawl. They seemed like they were looking right into her soul. And he had a forked tongue and poisonous claws for god's sakes! How was she supposed to trust someone like that? Sure, he had broke her free from her stony prison, but he clearly had his own reason for doing it and she didn't want to be used again.

Terra laughed nervously when she noticed that she had started to pace around the cave. Was she really that indecisive about this? The guy had left himself, so it should be okay for her to go out too, right? It had been so long since she saw the sun or the night sky. She took a couple of steps towards the doorway before stopping again.

"Should I return this jacket? It seems expensive. Feels like it's lined with silk." When Terra was absentmindedly feeling the jacket's fabric between her fingers 

another disturbing thought hit her. "He took this coat off himself and he was definitely bigger than me, so why does this coat fit me perfectly?" Terra moved stretched her arms around and the coat didn't seem too big for her at all. It did fit her too perfectly. Now that she knew how valuable the jacket was, it was clearly enchanted, she felt really bad about just taking it and leaving. She couldn't stand to be trapped in a cave much longer. Her power might be controlling the earth, but she didn't like caves or to be precise she didn't like to be surrounded by something she could move with her mind. If she were to lose control even for a moment, she probably would collapse the whole cave on herself. She preferred a solid ground under her, not all around her. That way she knew where her powers took effect. She had always had trouble in directing her powers and if there were rock all around her she would probably end up hurting people around her, which had been proven by Slade. That freaking bastard only wanted to control her. She had thought that he was actually helping her, but look where it got her in the end. Stuck inside a statue for god knows how many years!

"I'm back." Said a calm and even voice from behind her. Terra's eyes widened. He's back. Terra reacted quickly since she knew how fast Slade was and how to counter it. She had been his apprentice after all. Ignoring the chance of the cave collapsing she made the floor of the cave shake, so that Slade would lose his balance and footing and that he couldn't dodge her next attack. She turned around and hurled a sharp spear-like rock that he pulled right out of the ceiling at the dark figure standing in the doorway.

When the rock was about a feet away from the figure she realised it wasn't Slade. It was the guy who had freed her from being a silly looking statue forever. She desperately tried to change the course of the spear flying at his chest, but it was too late. The spear-like rock went straight through his chest and then was crushed on the wall behind him. The guy with the glowing eyes had a gaping hole in his chest and for a second he looked like he didn't even notice it. Then his hands dropped to his sides and he fell to his knees. The refrigerator he had been carrying for some reason fell to the floor with a mighty crash when the glass bottles of Coke, Beer, Sprite and such broke inside it. His chin dropped to his chest and it looked like he was looking at the gaping hole in his chest. Thick, crimson red blood poured down onto the floor and stained his black clothes even darker.

"What… Did I… Do now?" He managed to say before falling face first on the floor. There was a sickening crunch when his face collided with the floor. Terra remembered the sound of someone's nose being broken from the time when he had to discipline his underlings. He had made her watch when he beat them near to death.

"Oh my god…" Terra hadn't actually killed anyone before. She had fought the Teen Titans so that it would look that she killed them and forced the whole city into obedience with her powers, but a cold-blooded murder wasn't part of her criminal record. Until now that is.

"Oh my god…" She had killed the person that helped her out of the misery her life had been all these years. "Get up, mister…" She didn't even know his name and she went and killed him, a kind person who brought her back from the dead. He gave Terra her life back and she took his away. "Please get up…" Terra fell to her knees and started sobbing uncontrollably. She fell to the floor and curled up into a ball inside the coat Du'grel had given her.

"Auu-uh…" The voice was so silent that it was almost inaudible, but Terra caught it between her sobs. She forcefully pushed her tears back and listened carefully. Could he still be alive? She kept his eyes closed, because she couldn't stand to see the body again if the sound had been just a distant dog howling or something. She listened for 

any sign that he was still alive. He did say he wasn't human and who knows what he could live through.

"Could… Could you stop…" Terra jumped up and looked at the body on the floor. It was almost in the exact same position as before, but his head was now turned to the side so he could speak. His eyes hadn't lost any of their glow and that encouraged Terra to ask:

"What? Could I stop what?" Terra scooted over to his body and leaned in closer to him. She was sitting in the ever-growing pool of his blood, but she didn't even notice it. The hole in his chest didn't close up in front of Terra's eyes, but she did see that the bleeding had slowed considerably. She turned her eyes to his undimmed eyes. "You are not going to die are you, mister? I'm so sorry about this! I really didn't mean to do this to you…" Terra choked down the words about to escape her mouth.

"I can't say that I thought he was Slade, that would probably hurt his feelings." Terra thought when sitting next to his unmoving body. Blood still kept on gushing out of the wound and almost the whole floor of the cave was swimming in blood. Terra wondered how so much blood could fit into one person. The fact that he was still alive was amazing. Terra had hit him right at the centre of his chest with a piece of rock as thick as a tree trunk and from what she knew of human physiology that would have meant that his heart was blown out of his chest, or at least shattered by the shrapnel.

"**You're right. My heart was blown out of my chest by that projectile and now my body is slowly rebuilding it. What did I do to deserve this by the way?" **Terra's head shot up and looked around the cave. Her hair was on her face and her eyes were wide open. She looked stressed. Du'grel saw signs of her mind closing the limit of breaking. He didn't want that, not after all the work he put into bringing her back. **"I'm sorry you had to see this, but you shouldn't worry. I'm immortal in the traditional sense of the word. I cannot die. I'll be fine in a minute." **

"How… Where… What?" Terra spun her head around trying to find out where Du'grel was speaking out. Somehow it sounded like he was talking from inside her head, but that was just impossible. Raven hadn't told her about telepathy and Terra never really had heard of things like that before she met the Teen Titans. She had heard of them, but didn't know about that supernatural stuff. She had powers and so did some of the people she knew, that's it, it was normal. She liked to keep things simple. This situation was not simple.

"**You should step back for a second now. I'm going to do something about this blood. Be sure to not to stand on it." **Everything that was happening just now was now so over Terra's head that she decided to stop thinking for now and walked out of the pool of blood Du'grel was standing in. When she stepped out of the pool of blood there was an almost inaudible hum in the air and Terra had the strange feeling that the space behind her twisted out of place for a second.

Du'grel coughed up a mouthful of blood. "Aah… Sorry for intruding in your mind like that, but I had blood in my other lung at the moment and the other one was splattered on the wall behind me. Now my heart has regenerated and circulatory function has been stabilised. I won't bleed on you anymore, but I still have a gaping hole in my chest." Terra didn't want to turn around and see the man he thought he had killed get up with a hole in his chest. That would just be too much for her.

"I brought some food with me. You should be getting hungry already. I understand if you are not hungry right now, but here's a whole fridge full of food when you do get hungry." Terra couldn't turn around. She really despised the thought of seeing him walking around with that hole in his chest that she had caused.

"Hmph! Slade was a real bastard wasn't he?" Du'grel said with an annoyed tone in his voice. Terra didn't turn around, but she did tilt her head a little more over to him. "What do you mean by that?" Terra asked and looked at Du'grel from the corner of her eye. She saw how he busied himself by mopping up the remaining blood with a mop he seemingly had pulled out from thin air. His eyes shone just as bright as ever. Her hair was hanging on her face and she swiped them away with her hand. She stopped her hand in front of her face.

She had Du'grel's blood in her hands. She couldn't get her eyes to look away from her bloodied hands. They looked like they were covered in red gloves. She didn't know how long she looked at her hand or if Du'grel talked to her or not, but she only snapped out of her haze when Du'grel reached out with a clean towel and wiped her hands clean between his own. His hands radiated comforting warmth into her body through the towel. Terra gathered her courage and looked up from her own hands. The hole in Du'grel's chest had reduced into a wide wound right in the middle of his chest. She could see his heart beating slowly through the wound. The heart looked too big and the beating was too slow for him to be human. She knew that she should have been creeped out beyond belief, but she noticed that her mind simply registered these things as facts and then derailed back into her happy place.

"Slade is dead." Du'grel stated in a quiet voice. "He did this to you and that is reason enough as it is, but I know about all the other people he hurt. The fact that I couldn't stop him from hurting all those people doesn't affect me one bit. That worries me."

Terra looked up into his eyes. They were shining brighter than before now and it hurt for her to look directly into them. They had also changed in another way. Last time she had looked into them or when they looked at her it made her skin crawl, but now she got a feeling of sadness and regret from them. "What did you say?" Terra asked in a shaky voice. Du'grel's eyes dimmed a little and Terra's skin started crawling again.

"I asked you if you were hungry or not. You had spent years standing around. That has to be consuming. Plus we need to talk about the conditions of the spell I brought you back with." He let Terra's hands go and threw the bloodied towel on the floor. The wound on his chest had healed almost completely already and it didn't look like it hurt him at all. He had a friendly smile on his face and every little detail about his demeanour was friendly and likeable. He was overdoing it, but he could have been trying to make her stop worrying about the attempted murder a few minutes ago. It didn't work that good when he was still wearing the torn and bloodied clothes and the hole in the front and back of his shirt was a constant reminder. His clothes also reeked of blood and that caused Terra to take a step away from him. He had a puzzled look on his face for a passing second, but then Terra felt a cold twinge behind her eyes and he looked down at his clothes. He sighed and raised his index finger as if to say "just a minute". He walked into the adjoining cave without saying a word. Terra heard how he snapped his fingers and then blinding white light flowed through the doorway. There was an eerie wail of wind and sounds of a raging fire coming from the other cave. The light intensified and then disappeared as fast as it had appeared. The whole episode had lasted only for a couple of seconds, but the after images of the light played across Terra's eyes for a couple of minutes.

"Hey, Terra?" His voice echoed because of the large space and made his voice sound inhuman. At least Terra hoped it was the caves echo.

"Yeah?"

"Could you hand me some clothes?" His voice stayed calm, but there was a barely distinguishable amused undertone. At least that was what Terra thought. Some clothes? What clothes were there in the cave other than the overcoat he had given her?

"Do you really want to see me naked that badly?" Terra snapped at him through clenched teeth. The nerve of this guy... It didn't take long for Du'grel to realise what she meant, but it would take too long to explain about the special traits of his coat. It was easier to just make her hand it over.

"Do you want to see me naked that badly then?" Du'grel shot back with a questioning tone in his voice. He could see Terra's mind and the thoughts running through her mind. He had to suppress a chuckle when he saw that she thought that it wouldn't be that bad to see him naked. His face darkened when he realised that he had been affecting her image of him without knowing it. His body was like a young and fit human, but he was something much more inhuman. He had done everything he could to give an honest image of himself. He had been honest so far.

"Fine! You can have it, you bastard!" His jacket was thrown at him from the doorway of the cave. Somehow Terra managed to hit him on the face even without looking. The cloth never made contact though, it was repelled a inch away from his face and it would have launched back to where it came from if he hadn't caught it with his claws. The fabric of his coat was soft and slippery like silk, but also as hard as steel when needed. It didn't break easily and when it did it regenerated just as fast as he did. He had remembered where he got it earlier, but after his transformation up in the Watchtower the memories had started to slip away. He clung on to his goal in order to keep his identity.

The coat slithered up his arm and wrapped around him. The hem of the coat reached the floor and black gloves appeared to cover his hands. The hood rose up and covered his face in the shadows within. Under the hood's darkness Du'grel's lips were moving with a quiet spell or a request. The coat's texture changed into hard, pitch black scales for a second and they rearranged into a different form. Du'grel was standing there wearing a blood stained black armour for just a passing second. The hood was replaced with an obsidian helmet that looked like the head of his dragon form. He was blissfully unaware of this transformation, but Terra had peeked into the cave just then and saw him standing in his blood soaked armour. The cave was dark and the only light source was the golden orb Du'grel had created, but the armour was clearly defineable from the surrounding darkness as it seemed to shine its own dark light.

Her first instinct was to escape, but before she was able to start running Slade's training kicked in and her mind started to calmly assess the situation. If she were to run she could use her powers to transport her quickly up into the surface. Her mind also took in consideration the fact that this guy had brought her back to life and thus probably had no intent on killing her. And finally there was the fact that he didn't die even if you tore his heart out of his chest and it seemed like his mind still could affect yours even if his body was unable to move.

Her chances of escape were slim at best. She stepped back into the cave with the enchanted orb of light. He Had some reason he had brought her back and why he wanted to keep her here, trapped inside this cave. The massive fridge he brought with him was proof of that. He hadn't bothered on bringing that much food down into the cave if she was getting out of there anytime soon. She sat down on the cold stone floor and waited for what was to come.

A bright light flashed out from the cave and then Du'grel stepped out of the cave wearing his overcoat. He threw a pair of black jeans and a black hoodie at Terra and then shot out towards the fridge. "Put those on. You shouldn't get a cold or anything. I know how frail you humans are." He forced the door of the fridge open, it had been bent a little out of shape when he dropped it, and looked over what was in there. He grabbed a giant piece of ham and turned around to face Terra. "My name is Du'grel Desham, I do not think I had introduced myself earlier. We need to talk, so I suggest you get something to drink and eat." He opened his mouth too wide for it to be possible for humans and chewed down a huge chunk out of the ham he had in his hand. He chewed a couple of times and then swallowed it all at once.

"Am I just imagining it or is this guy trying to pronounce the fact he isn't human?" Terra thought while looking at him in disgust bordering in awe. He just looked at her with a quirked eyebrow and stepped away from the fridge. When he didn't turn his eyes away Terra remembered that she was still naked. She blushed and covered herself with the hoodie. Du'grel smirked and turned his back to her. A small considerate gesture to keep her from hitting him in the head with a rock, no doubt. He put his hand over the piece of ham he was eating. It started to glow faintly and the mouth watering aroma of roasted meat filled the cave. Terra threw the hoodie over her head and noticed that it was way too big for her. She could almost squeeze her shoulders through the collar and the sleeves drooped down to her knees when she stood up.

"Are these yours?" Terra asked with only the hoodie on her. She didn't actually need the pants as the hoodie was large enough to work as a short dress. Du'grel turned around and looked at Terra head to toe. His grin got even wider.

"Well... Don't you look cute!" He burst out into laughter and staggered against the wall. His laughter was low enough to make her eardrums itch and it sounded like it echoed out from lungs much larger than his. Still, even though it was somewhat creepy, like anything else about him, his laughter was very appealing and made you want to laugh along. Terra was laughing along even though she knew she was made fun of. They didn't know how long they kept laughing, but when Du'grel started to calm down Terra was seeing black spots dancing around. Du'grel kept on chuckling by himself and occasionally took a chunk out of the ham in his hand while Terra steadied her breath.

"So, Duane, why did you- "

"Du'grel."

"Bless you. But anyways, Duane, why did you bring me back?"

"Listen: It's Du'grel, not Duane."

"What's a what now?"

"My name, my name is Du'grel Desham. Nothing more, nothing less." Du'grel was getting agitated and his eyes flashed behind the sunglasses.

"What the hell are you talking about, Duane? I understood about every third word out of what you just said"

"..." He really had to fight the urge of killing her.

"Would you please answer my question?"

"You're doing that on purpose, aren't you?" Du'grel said while gritting his teeth.

"I said please..."

"This is going to be a long week..." Du'grel slumped down to the ground and sighed heavily. Terra walked over to the fridge. Her hunger erased any will to listen to Du'grel. "Anyways, we should talk about the properties of the spell I brought you back with. First of all: You can't leave this cave."

Terra almost choked on the coke she was drinking and coughed up the coke in her mouth in Du'grel's general direction. She had enough sense in her not to ruin the other food in the fridge. The drops of the sweet beverage froze over before they hit Du'grel. They bounced of his coat and rolled over on the floor like marbles. "What? What's the point in bringing me back if I can't leave here?"

"Let me finish. It's only for a week. The spell I brought you back with dispersed into the surrounding area and the... Spiritual energy has to sink into your body and for you to be whole again. The process is unfamiliar to me, but I know that it lasts for the duration of eight days and both the spell caster and the charmed have to stay in the radius of it; seems like we are stuck with each other, for now at least." He looked up to Terra and was surprised by her reaction. He was also mildly aggravated by the glass bottle colliding with his face.

"Pervert!" She threw another beverage at him. "If you have to make up an excuse at least make it believable, you bastard!" Terra kept on throwing stuff at Du'grel from the fridge. She wasn't as fast with her hands as she was with her powers so Du'grel really had no trouble catching the projectiles before they did any damage.

"What the hell is with you? I've been nothing but honest with you and this is what I get! Guess I should just have lied to you from the start like Slade did!" Terra's hand stopped while she getting something else to throw at him. Slade. He had said he had killed Slade. He hadn't made a big fuss about it. Actually it seemed like he slipped it out by accident. She hadn't really thought about the whole thing until now, since his weird change in personality had freaked her out more than a little. Now when she remembered the blood stained armour and the way a sense of danger he emitted she actually believed him. She knew that it would take someone like him to take down someone like Slade.

"You couldn't be more wrong. I just happened to meet this Slade you think so highly of and happened to break him into pieces. There was no grand clashing of two forces, I simply needed something out of him and took it." Du'grel walked right in front of Terra, so close that she could feel his breath on her face. She noticed that his breath smelled like winter, while still being warm. He was taller than Terra, so he was looking down into her upturned face. She reminded him of Melvin with her big blue eyes and blonde hair. He heard something growl like a hungry beast inside his head and felt how he was distanced from his own body. He didn't register his hand going up to her face and didn't acknowledge his claws being unsheathed.

**_Slap!_**

He did notice the slap across the face though. He snapped out of his haze and looked at his right hand that was almost touching Terra's cheek. His claws were unsheathed and hot pink energy was concentrated on his fingertips. What had he intended to do to her? His thoughts had trailed off to Melvin and the next thing he knew was Terra slapping him. He staggered back from Terra staring at his hand in silent horror. He was about to do it again! This time he had no excuse. He couldn't just say that he did it for the greater good or to achieve something in the near future. He would have done it just because he wanted to hurt Terra.

He didn't need to do anything more to aggravate Raven. She was ready already. All he had to do now was give the order to the little Ravens inside Raven's mind and stop Raven from having the peace of mind needed to contain them. What he did to Melvin had insured that. Raven could always feel Melvin's terror and fear in any of the artefacts she used for meditation in her room and she definitely couldn't sleep there anymore. She would probably end up sleeping alone in a spare room or with Star Fire. Neither one of these options would actually help her regain her composure. If she were to sleep in a spare room Guilty, Suicidal, Timid and Melancholic would torment her. If she would end up sleeping with Star Fire then there would be Lust whispering all kinds of things in her ear.

"There is no need to hurt her... We have everything we need already..." Du'grel didn't notice Terra shouting at him and she didn't notice how he was talking to himself. Terra's voice was drowned out by the low chuckle echoing around his head. He had compared his condition to Raven's split personality, but with him they were the ones on top and he was the one being suppressed. He usually went along with their wishes, since there was that much he could do to stop them.

**No need to hurt her, huh? Sure, there is no actual need to hurt her, but still there is the desire to do so. You loved to do those things to Melvin. No point in denying it, I'm in your head, remember? I know you, I am you, I am in control!**

Everything started to blur and it was getting hard for him to focus his eyes on anything. It was trying to take control and by the fact that it was able to blur his vision it seemed to be winning. He realised he was on his knees and that Terra looked worried and was inching herself towards the exit with pieces of rubble floating around her.

_Good girl. You should get away from me..._

Everything blurred even more and now it looked like he was looking at the world from the bottom of a murky lake, or in his case, a frozen lake. He never asked to be reanimated, but still she had come to him. With her mind creaking at the seams, just waiting to be pushed to the edge, but with enough fortitude to stand his fire's mental probing. Down here, he could remember everything out of his miserable little life again. He could also hear the cries of all the people he had absorbed somewhere even further down. His physical body was out of his control and now he was just a part of the flame. In a darkness where his own light only strengthened it, fed it, gave it shape and form. He was trapped in this cold place and the evil side of him was back up in control.

"**Define evil..." **His own voice echoed around him**. **It seemed to come out of the darkness surrounding him. It was the darkness surrounding him, the cold bitter stench of decay pierced through into his mind. "**We were created in the loneliness of our life and he is what represents us, he is us. He is a part of you. We are you, we own you. You are nothing but an illusion that was conjured up because of a single Azarathian priestess's dying wish. Your every memory is either borrowed or fake. Hmph, the sooner you accept the truth, the sooner this will be over. The sooner we will be free."**

"What the hell? I know I'm real! I am real and you are the invaders!" He had no body, but he still felt when the darkness surrounding him started to intensify and coil around him like a snake. The hiss that he had let out to frighten or alienate other people now resonated around him. The darkness around him shifted, like something huge moved inside it. He didn't see, he couldn't see without eyes, but he sensed how two golden orbs of golden light rose from the deepest darkness under him. Narrow slits of darkness appeared at the centre of the orbs and two reptilian eyes were looking at him.

"**Hi, remember me. I'm the third one out of this little trinity fixation you have. Body, Soul and the mind, right, or in your case: the demon, the human and the dragon. You have split your whole being in three and created us, or it was one of the two of us. Actually it doesn't matter, since all of us have the same goal, for now at least. But if we get the chance to have fun that has no effect in our common goal, we make the best of it. So, you just stand down and let us have our fun."**

"No." He was smothered by darkness, but still he was able to put enough strength into his words that the dragon loosened its grip from surprise. He squeezed himself free before it was able to wrap its tail or whatever it was that had been around him and started to move through the darkness to the point where there was a faint presence of light. He didn't walk, run, swim or fly towards the light, it didn't feel like anything like those things. The feeling he got was kind of like the feeling when you try to remember something really hard and the memory becomes clearer and clearer. He was inside his mind after all. He heard Terra's voice before he could make anything out of the blur he was striving towards.

_Come on; snap out of it, Duane! If what you said was true it would be a whole lot more pleasant if you wouldn't try to molest me!_

He felt a faint sensation of pain when something solid hit his head. It was too hard to be Terra's fist so his body was probably far enough for her to use her powers safely, at least far enough for her to hurl rocks at him. The light kept on becoming brighter and brighter and he started to make out vague outlines. He definitely saw Terra's glowing eyes and how his field of vision jerked around when the rocks she kept hurling at him made contact. The pain was just as distant as his body was, but now he was starting feel like his spirit started to settle into the form of his body. He could define that he had hands and a torso, but his legs trailed behind him like the tail of a serpent. He pictured himself as solidifying smoke to speed up the process. He raised his spirit-hand between himself and the light and saw the outlines of a skeletal clawed hand. Flesh gathered around his fingers as he got closer to controlling his own body. He moved his hand back to his side and concentrated solely on going towards the light. He knew he wouldn't remember any of this later on anyways. This had happened before and he never remembered anything like this. He just seemed to snap out of it.

"Come on, what's this all of the sudden? Damn you're creepy! First you're a drooling molest-o-matic and then you just start talking to yourself and collapse on the ground! GET UP!"

DO-OONG!

The rock Terra threw at him with her power was deflected by Du'grel's reactive energy shield. It missed her face by a mere inch and then slammed into the wall behind her. Her eyes widened and her mouth kept on nudging up like she was about to laugh. She didn't, but Du'grel did. He didn't know if he did it out of seeing her shock or by the relief that he was able to stop himself in time, but for now he simply didn't care. He just laughed from the bottom of his heart for the first time in what felt like a very, very long time. The mental numbness was gone for the moment and emotions bubbled to the surface. Since he hadn't dealt with any for a while, now even a slightest amount overwhelmed him.

"I... I killed them... I made the people who cared for them suffer in the most horrid way... I made them suffer..." He tried to cling onto the fleeting joy, but the regret and sorrow that had stored up for weeks hit him head on. It smothered him all around and caused him to re-live the horrid things he had done without the hatredge of the demon in him, or by the numbness to emotions obstructing his view.

He had ripped Flash apart and then used the pieces to traumatize Supergirl. He had ripped Mara's head off. He had torn Superman apart from the inside and burned Hawkgirl's wings. He had burned away countless of lifes up on the station and Melvin's parents here down on earth. Melvin... What he had done to Melvin was unforgivable...

"Nononononono...Stop it...Please..." Du'grel curled up into a tight ball and whined and gasped for air. He shed no tears. His eyes weren't made for crying, but the light shining from them was soft and dim. Terra couldn't stop tears from forming into her 

eyes when she even glimpsed into the general direction of his eyes. Was she really forced to share this cave with this guy for a week? She had her reasons not to believe him, but he had brought her back into the land of the living, so believing him was the least she could do. She clanked at him over her shoulder and felt the raw emotions of pain and regret invaded her mind when she registered the light coming from his eyes. And she could understand what he was going trough right now, to a certain extent. This was clearly much worse than she ever had it. The regret had been eating away at her despite what she told herself when she used her powers to overtake the city. This looked like what she felt like doing back then.

She wondered if it was safe to turn back from the wall when she suddenly didn't hear him anymore. There were no sounds of him crying, whining, bashing his head on the floor, punching his fists two inches into solid rock, or him saying he was sorry.

_He could be sneaking up on me._

She turned around and saw something she really didn't expect to see. He was Du'grel, that much you could see from his eyes, but now he was covered in sparkling white scales that made it look like he was wearing some kind of wholebody armour. He had grown more than seven feet tall and with the wings on his back, he could barely stand straight in the cave. He was watching at his hands silently, without making any sound. His hands were enormous and it looked like he could tear through solid rock without breaking a sweat. Terra looked back down to his feet and saw that the foot had stretched out, so that he was now standing on his toes, no, claws, they were claws. They were too long and deadly to be called toes, or any kind of toenails. How could turn into this in the time she had had her back turned without making a single sound?

"Damn, Duane, what exactly are you, a dinosaur? Please don't tell me that you're a dinosaur though. I think my mind is going to melt if you do that. I mean: What sense would there be in a dinosaur returning me back to life? None, I tell ya! No sense at all! They're the ones that archaeologists are digging out of rocks for god's sakes! If you insist that you are a dinosaur though you just gotta appreciate the irony though. I mean: Isn't a dinosaur excavating a human out from the ground the definition of ironic? Huh? What do you say, Duane? Duane, say something. Please?"

He was still looking at his hands when his tail struck out and wrapped around Terra's neck. Terra tried not to move as the edges of the scales looked razor sharp. Du'grel set his hands down on his sides and turned his eyes to Terra. His head had turned into head of a dragon, horns, mouth full of needle-like fangs and all. With his wings, tail and dangerous looking tail he looked like some artistic definition of the devil. His eyes still shone the same, but the pupil of the eye was now shaped like an oval. The eyes of a crocodile, or some other big reptile, only shinier and a lot more scary.

"**I think my time is running out..." **His tail slithered away from her neck and started swaying behind him. His wings retreated back into his body and his feet shrunk enough for his heels to touch the floor**. **He sighed deeply and the resulting gush of hot air knocked Terra over.

"What are you trying to do, you freaking Barney!?" Terra was about to get back up when Du'grel crashed down into a sitting position on the floor and yhe tremor of his increased mass knocked her back down. "YOU ARE SO FREAKING –"

"**Dead? That would be a whole lot more convincing if you had some pants on. While we're on the subject: Do you shave, or is that natural?" **

"What... You... THAT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, LIZARD BOY!" Terra shot up and covered herself with the over sized hoodie. Her face was beet-red and she was breathing heavily. If Du'grel didn't know better he could think that she wanted to kill him. He had always thought that humans were fun to mess with and now he was doing just that without even doing anything to her mind or body, directly.

"**What? You're not going hit me in the head with a rock?" **Just when Du'grel thought someone couldn't be any redder without bleeding Terra's blush became even deeper. **"What?"**

"Please tell me you have two tails..." Terra's voice sounded raspy and like it was hard for to get a word out of her mouth. What could have caused her throat to dry up like that?

"**Two tails? Why would I have two tails? What the hell are you... Could you please stop drooling?!"**

"What... Oh, not drooling, I wasn't drooling! Why would I be drooling? No, this is... Uh, yes, I was drooling, but it wasn't because... I mean...You're a freaking lizard!"

"**And yet you are drooling..." **Humans are fun, Du'grel thought when he saw Terra's mouth open and close repeatedly. Somehow it reminded him of a fish he had seen in this world. The fish in question had been confined to a tank made out of translucent glass and kept on staring at him. The ending result of that had been a pet store burnt to the ground. He never figured why he thought that destroying the whole pet store would solve anything, but his dragon side had been dominant at the time and it didn't really think things through.

"SHUT UP!" Terra finally was able to force out of her throat. "What the hell is that? It looks like... like..."

"**A one eyed snake?"**

"Yes! No! I mean... It... Shut the hell up!"

"**A fire hose, a salami, or maybe some other kind of sausage? I love this game!"**

BONK!

"I did tell you to shut up..."

"**Aww... The sound is echoing inside my head... It feels like there are a couple hundred Lords of the dance dancing on my eardrums... Damn, that was mean..." **He pointed his prolonged index finger at Terra. **"You are a mean lady..." **The corner of Terra's eye started to switch. If Du'grel's current physiology would allow him to chuckle, he would, but his head only slightly nodded up and down and a hissing sound escaped his mouth. He waited her to throw rocks at him, but instead her shoulders slumped and she let out a tired sigh.

"Oh, why do I even care if you see me naked, you're a lizard. You probably get off watching salamanders have sex for god's sakes..." She shrugged and walked over to the fridge. "God, I'm sooo hungry. Oh, crab cakes, tacos, hummus, cheese, hamburgers, salami..." She glanced over at Du'grel. Du'grel tilted his head to the side and let his tongue quiver between his fangs. Terra turned back to look over the contents of the fridge "Stupid... Just ignore it, just ignore it... Peace of mind, peace of mind..." She had actually misunderstood him when he said he had more control over his libido, but if it got her to eat in peace he could delay correcting her a little while. He did have a little more control over his libido, but when he lost control, he couldn't regain it for a while. So, for now he just would allow her to think he "got off watching salamanders" and correct her after she had had something to eat.

Maybe it would be time for him to check up in Raven's sub-consciousness. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. After a couple of minutes he felt dislocated from his own body. He could hear and feel thoughts and feelings all around him. He dove down into the stream to find a certain mind out from the flow outside of time and space. It couldn't have been even a minute after he dove in when he felt how something disturbed his body. From the lack of options he reasoned it had to be Terra. He growled in his spiritual form and turned back to return into his body.

He opened his eyes and saw Terra jumping on one foot and cursing at him. He made the required assumptions before saying: **"You kicked me? You forgot that I was covered in scales, didn't you? How is that even possible? It's not like I'm hiding them or anything." **He didn't have a brow to quirk at her, so he tilted his head slightly instead. Terra looked at him with murder in her eyes and Du'grel just had to chuckle to himself when he saw how close she came to kicking him again. **"Why did you kick me anyways? Do you need something? I'll go get you some real clothes as soon as I can transform into a human again." **Du'grel looked down on the ground around Terra. He saw empty jars of peanut butter, wrappers for all kinds of protein and chocolate bars Mammoth had stored in the fridge, crumbs from the brownies and several kinds of cookies found in the fridge, actually anything you could eat without cooking it. Seemingly he had been out of it more than a couple of minutes or Terra had been a lot hungrier than he had thought. He looked down to the ground in front of him and saw several packages of bacon, the rest of the ham he was eating earlier, several rows of marinated pork chops, packages of minced meat, anything you couldn't eat without cooking it first.

"Clothes can wait, but could you do the same thing to these as you did to that ham you were eating earlier. I've never been this hungry..." She looked him straight in the eye. She had a desperate look in her eyes that really didn't suit her. It made her look like a beaten child begging for love. He really didn't like the metaphor, so he turned his eyes back to the food laid out in front of him. He would gladly do what she wanted him to, but the problem was that his claws were filled with a deadly poison, so he couldn't touch anything she was going to eat. He reached out his hand to the ham and released a minimal amount of heat from his palm and concentrated it evenly in the ham. A flash and the ham was done and smelled fucking fantastic. Terra lunged in almost too fast for him to pull his hand out of the way. When he was in this form he was not able to sheathe his claws, so it was really close that he didn't poison her.

"**This might be part of the spell as well... It was uncommon of me to be so worried about you eating or not, now when I think about it. I guess you're metabolic system is going on overdrive to catch up for the years you were in that statue..." **Du'grel focused his eyes to monitor the consumption and amount of energy inside Terra's body and after a couple of quick calculations, he concluded that Terra's body was using energy ten times more than normal and more efficiently. With that and the fact that she had not actually eaten in a few years it was no wonder she was hungry. Terra wolfed down the chunk of ham and then leaned back holding her stretched out stomach with a satisfied look on her face. The speed of her metabolism amazed Du'grel when he saw her stomach flatten in less than thirty seconds. After that Du'grel noticed that the energy flow inside her body slowed down and her body seemed to concentrate on controlling and distributing it inside the body. Without the magic supporting her body and mind it would be impossible for her body to go through the growth spurt of the late adolescent years in only a mere week, but now when it was already happening Du'grel could only sit back and watch and make sure that magic would not buckle under the strain. It was a possibility and since Du'grel was the source of the magical might that was causing the transformation it was best for him to stay as close as possible and keep her saturated in magical might to make sure her transformation would not distort her body. The eight day rule was true, but this growth spurt gave him a reason not to break it. The eight days were needed for the spell to have a permanent effect, but not for it to work. She could still have a couple of perfectly normal and possibly happy years before the magic in her body dissipated and she would either return to be a statue or simply die, but with this unexpected turn of events she wouldn't be able to get even that if he were to leave her permanently. He really had a reason for her to live, but the other two sides of him only agreed to let her live for exactly that time and that would be it.

He was part Azarathian and Azarathians were a known race of powerful healers, ancient ancestors had been something so much more, but of course there had been healers among the military powers, they actually made out the majority of the general population and were the only tribe with enough of a genetic foothold to survive thousands of generations. The tribe that Du'grel's Azarathian side came from was closer to the healers than the ones with destructive powers, so they had that innate appreciation for life and despised using their eyes to kill, but did so if forced to. But that was a long time ago. Only thing remaining of that heritage were his eyes and his exceptional mental fortitude that made it possible for him to share his body and mind with a demon and a dragon, but still there was a faint memory of her mother's broken mind. That was a memory that was too old to fade away and as days passed his other memories slipped away it became more and more dominant. Her mother had been broken down and used by his father, just for his little project. It didn't relieve his anger at all that his little experiment was successful. Here he was: A half-breed demon that had inherited his father's unique power and a rightful heir to his throne. To tell the truth: He couldn't care less. Those things happened a long time ago and he only wanted to be free from his past. The throne of a long forgotten demon had no value to him, but still he felt like he had a score to settle with Trigon. It was because of his little coup de tat that his mother had been forced to run herself to death and for him to be sealed away in that lake. He hated and despised everything in his past and his present situation forced him to play the role of the villain.

"**I only want to get away from it all..." **Du'grel turned his eyes to Terra and saw that she was looking at him with her mouth and eyes in perfect circles. Du'grel quirked his brow at her and tilted his head like he always did. **"What?" **It took him a couple of seconds to realize that he actually had a brow to quirk at her. He looked down to his hands and saw his claws retreat back into his fingers and normal finger nails grow to cover them right in front of his eyes. So his three sides were stable enough that the dragon side of him didn't have to keep back the flame inside him.

"That was the most messed up thing I have ever seen..." Terra said with a shaky voice. She looked shaken to the core and Du'grel couldn't stop a small smirk from nudging the side of his mouth up.

"**Really? My scales retreating back under my skin and my skin growing back to cover them was the most messed up thing you ever saw?"**

Terra shook her head and could only point to his head with her hand shaking.

"**So it was my head twisting and turning back into my human form?" **Terra nodded her head.** "Understandable, but I'm sorry to disappoint you, that's not going to be the most messed up thing you're going see. I have a task for you after you get out and it might mess you up if I don't warn you about a few things."**

_So, here it comes: The real reason he brought me back. I knew that he wouldn't just do it from the goodness of his heart_. Terra looked into those glowing eyes of his that made her skin crawl at times, now there was that sense of regret again. His eyes were really exotic. She knew that she had seen something like them before, just without the otherworldly glow. It was from the time she had spent in the desert. She couldn't place it, but she was sure it hadn't been a lizard.

"**The creature you are trying to remember is a wolf. I do not know why, but most people connect my eyes to the sharp eyes of a raptor, even though these look more like the eyes of a wolf. They must sense that I can see right through them and connect me to the creature with the sharpest vision they know. I have ****done some research though and there are a couple of raptors with eyes kind of like mine."** He shrugged and then dodged the rock flying towards his head. He figured he should have just stayed quiet and not let her know that he saw her thoughts. She was very sensitive about that. Du'grel was quite sure she would try to kill him if she ever knew how much he knew about her already without trying.

"Get out of my head. I did warn you before, so this can't be a surprise to you."

"**Come on, it's not like there a freaking switch or something! It takes more conscious effort to breathe than to read someone's mind... For me at least, I wouldn't know how it is with Raven... I think she has to touch you to do it. At least according to the memories I gathered from the other Teen Titans."**

Terra flinched back from his sudden outburst and the floating rocks clattered to the ground. Terra felt how the glow of his eyes transmitted his sudden hate into her mind and it hit her like a sledgehammer. It didn't harm her in any way, but it felt very, very uncomfortable. It felt like jagged chunks of ice were forming inside her when she felt the emotion through Du'grel. The world was suddenly spinning and then tilted 90 degrees so that she was suddenly looking at the ceiling.

"**Terra? Terra, are you okay? Terra! Hey, get up already!"** Terra's eyes rolled over and she lost consciousness. Du'grel wondered what had just happened and looked into Terra's short term memory. So she got a taste of the gold hate brewing inside him. That's something he would have liked to spare her from going through. Du'grel took his overcoat off again and tucked her back to sleep. It would okay for him to leave the cave for a couple of hours if he left the overcoat and the enchanted light here to feed the magic inside Terra. It was time to take advantage of her lack of consciousness and go and get her some clothes.

While he shimmered away he started to wonder where you could find clothes. He rummaged through the memories of the earthlings he had encountered and found several indications to a strange, but yet joyful place where you could find right about anything you were looking for.

Now he just had to figure out where the hell he could find this "Mall Of Shopping" and why he had thesudden urge to paint his toenails and play with his hair.

**Again, sorry for taking so long and sorry for keeping you in the dark about the reason he brought Terra back. I noticed that in this chapter only things Terra seems to do is throw rocks at Du'grel, eat, sleep and talk and yes there is no actual reason I made them stay in the cave together for a week. I intend to make Du'grel the bad guy of this story and I am not actually going to hook him up with any of the characters, sorry to disappoint you if that is what you were thinking. **

**And when he says eight days, it's contradicting with the one week thing he keeps saying. Terra slept for a whole day in the time Du'grel was out getting food. What he did in this time will be revealed later. Sorry to confuce you.**

**Crazy Laughter**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

"How did he even get in here? I swear that I activated the whole freaking alarm system myself! Beast Boy didn't touch anything, so how is this possible?" Cyborg shouted from the top of his lungs. Cyborg had been keeping an eye on Beast boy and he really did not touch anything. He had kept an eye on Star Fire as well, since she looked like she was acceptable to mental influence Du'grel might have implanted.

"Beast Boy is not to blame. Cyborg, tell me, is there a way he could have done this if he knew the needed override codes?" Robin spoke up from his thoughtful silence. He had been pacing the floor for the last hour and only growled at them when they asked him something. He was furious and now he was probably thinking of a way to bring Du'grel to justice. The fact that he hadn't spoken to them meant that he hadn't been able come up with anything. He was too consumed by his black and white concept of good and evil that he didn't even feel bad about the criminals Star Fire was going to encounter. She had volunteered to go out on patrol while they dealt with the aftermath.

"Well, he would have to have my energy imprint, but since he is a freaking shape shifter…" Cyborg punched his hand into a wall. They were all angry and each of them handled it in their own way, but there was one connecting factor with all of them: They all wanted to bring down Du'grel and ruin whatever he was planning; little did they know that was also part of Du'grel's plan.

Without certain mental suggestions Beast Boy and Cyborg might have remembered what happened when Raven became consumed by anger and Star Fire might have been there to comfort her. They were all so concentrated on getting Du'grel that they didn't notice Raven isolating herself from them and the crimson shade of red in her eyes that deepened day by day. Raven was angry, so very angry.

**Inside Raven's mind:**

"What should we do? What should we do? What should we do? 1, 2, 3!" Obsessive Compulsive panicked when she found out that Du'grel was going to set Anger free and summon Trigon into the real world. The rumor spread throughout Raven's mind and almost every part of her mind knew about it, excluding the conscious side, the real Raven that is. Du'grel had been very clear about the condition of their pact that she would not know before he said so. The majority of the emotions he had given freedom were with him and kept the others quiet, especially Lust. She was with Du'grel all the way and was the unappointed leader of their little rebellion. No one knew if Du'grel was going to follow through with his promise and if Lust believed him to do so, but they feared a week in Lust's little dungeon more than whatever consequences there might be if Du'grel betrayed them.

"Why should we do anything? Du'grel was able to convince Logic and Intelligence, so his plan has to have some merit. It's best to see what comes out of this. We have so much to gain here that it's worth the risk." Optimistic stated while being pinned down by Pessimistic. Pessimistic bit Optimistic's ear and made her moan. Optimistic had a little bit of masochistic in her, not literally of course. Masochistic was probably being tortured by Sadistic right now. Optimistic flexed her legs and was able to roll Pessimistic off of her chest. She sat down on Pessimistic's chest like she had sat on hers a second ago and pinned her hands above her head.

"Come on, are you forgetting what do we have to lose here? If we betray Raven like this and Du'grel doesn't pull through then we'll stop existing all together. There's no way Du'grel's plan can work and even if it does, do you really think he'll give us what he promised. We're talking about a demonic half-breed that was locked away for god knows how long by Raven's family. We all know that demons can harbor a heck of a grudge and he really has a reason to hate us, all of us." Pessimistic answered, now when she didn't have to concentrate on pinning Optimistic down. Optimistic craned her neck to the side and kissed a spot behind Pessimistic's ear and made her moan in return.

"But, but, but… 1, 2, 3! If it is as Pessimistic says then wouldn't it be better to tell Raven and stop all this? 1, 2, 3!" Obsessive Compulsive was tapping her temple nervously, three taps, pause, three taps, pause, etc. She asked her question two more times and then waited for them to answer. Optimistic and Pessimistic looked at the nerve wreck that was Obsessive Compulsive. They stopped trying to topple each other down for the time it took them to say: "Honey, it's already too late to stop any of this."

Then they started to wrestle on the bed again. Pessimistic got on top first and bit Optimistic on her neck and chest. She was able to rip the leotard apart and suckle and bite her nipples for a minute before Optimistic toppled her over and did the same, without the biting though. They both moaned loudly and gradually undressed each other while fighting over who the dominant one in their relationship was. Obsessive Compulsive had seen it all before, so she soon became bored and walked away. She had found Optimistic and Pessimistic in the space between the invidual worlds they lived in. The crippled trees and creepy demonic Raven's didn't help to brighten up her day. She continued along the path she was walking and after passing a tree with a smiley and an arrow drawn under it she realized she was heading towards Happy's world. That was good, she thought, she could use a little happiness right about now. As long as she wouldn't make any passes on Happy Timid would probably not throw a rock at her. Timid was frighteningly possessive and overly jealous. Happy didn't notice or didn't mind, but it didn't change the fact that Timid was scary.

_She used to be nice to me, but now it's all about her precious Happy. I was perfectly fine with the life I had before Du'grel showed up. Raven visited from time to time and we answered her questions and she could solve her problems and leave us alone. I was perfectly fine with that, but when Du'grel came, made his promises and gave them a choice everything got screwed up. Everyone is doing whatever he asks them to just because their afraid that he would take their freedom away and we would all be bound to be just what we represent. We would all be in our own little worlds, doing our own little things and wouldn't even know of each other._

She continued to walk along the path deep in thought. She avoided the several pranks Happy had set up along the way without even thinking about it that much. Her brow furrowed when she stumbled upon the idea that wasn't it impossible for her to think her own thoughts if she was a part of someone else's mind? She kept on thinking about this little paradox, or whatever it was, until her mind overheated from the strain. She stopped thinking about the whole thing and stepped through the portal that led into Happy's little realm.

"HAPPINES KICK! HII-YA!" Obsessive Compulsive was able to see something pink flying at her before she suddenly became aware of all the pretty little stars floating around. Somehow she had ended up in a marshmallow bush next to the portal in and out of Happy's home. She thought that it was impossible for there to be stars in Happy's realm, since the sun didn't set there. What would explain all the stars flying about then?

"Oh, I'm so sorry about her! I tried to talk her out of it, but I really couldn't stop her from doing that when she saw you being so down… Again, I'm very sorry you had to go through that. I apologize on her behalf. " By the amount of apologies and by the shy voice Obsessive Compulsive concluded that the one talking was Timid.

"Why would she think that kicking me in the head would make me feel any happier?" This thought puzzled her and it was all she could think about when the billions of pretty stars swirled around her. She was somewhat conscious when Timid pulled her out of the marshmallow bush and picked out the marshmallows stuck in her hair and cloak. She muttered a thank you while trying to sort out which one of the five Timid's in front of her was the real one. "She really packs a punch, doesn't she? I feel like I was hit by a bus or something. 1, 2, 3!" Once Obsessive Compulsive narrowed the Timid's into one she noticed that her face had lit up when she had, unintentionally but still, complimented Happy. She really did love Happy more than anything. Obsessive Compulsive couldn't think if Du'grel had forced that thought in her head. He would probably be capable of something like that.

"I have to say that I'm sorry for her one more time. Hey, we haven't seen each other in a while. Would you like a cup of tea? As an apology from that little incident and we could catch up while we're at it. What do you say?" Timid smiled at her while waiting for an answer. Obsessive Compulsive could only look at her in awe. Was this what Du'grel was promising them and the reason they were so strongly behind him? A freedom to change themselves into what they wanted to be instead of stuck with the role Raven gave them? Well, that was the definition of the word "freedom" but the realization still had taken a while to catch up with her.

"I guess it isn't that bad after all…" Obsessive Compulsive said. Timid looked at her with a quirked eyebrow. Her shoulders slumped and she looked like a turtle retreating back into her shell when she said: "You don't like my tea. I understand; I'm a failure, I shouldn't have been born and my whole existence is futile…" Timid turned her back to Obsessive Compulsive and started walking away with her head bowed and with an aura of sadness around her. Yet, however how much she tried to change; she still had the same old Timid as a base.

"No, no, no, I didn't mean it like that! I was thinking of something entirely different. I love your tea; we all do… 1, 2, 3! Dammit! I want to stop doing that. Is that what Du'grel is offering us; freedom to be what we want to be? Tell me, you're behind him aren't you? You know, so tell me, please!" Obsessive Compulsive grabbed Timid's shoulder. They all had the same powers as Raven did and one of Raven's powers was mind reading, within certain limitations. Her power required touch to work but with that she got a general idea of the persons mind. Now when Obsessive Compulsive touched Timid's shoulder Timid knew how desperately she wanted to know.

"No, that is not what he promised us…" Timid looked at Obsessive Compulsive and saw how her posture slumped. A faint smile appeared on Timid's lips. "He already gave us that. What he has given to us and what he is going to give cannot even be compared. By the way, wouldn't it be a lot more convenient if we called you OC from now on? Obsessive Compulsive is just too hard." Obsessiv… OC believed that Timid believed in Du'grel, since they were still touching each other and both of them had the same power.

"Where did Happy disappear to by the way?" OC didn't think that she would just kick her and then disappear right away; she would at least have stayed long enough to laugh at her. Again she was just fast enough to register something pink moving at the edge of her field of vision before the hit landed. She was able to start a defeated sigh before she was thrown back.

"JOYFUL UPPERCUT! KA-WUUM!"

The stars were so pretty and colorful…

"Happy! What did you do that for? Why do you always have to be so immature! Grow up already, for god's sakes!"

Ooh… Timid's being scary again… I'm just going to close my eyes for a second…

**In Terra's Cave:**

"Holy mother of Steve! What the hell did you do?"

"**I didn't know your size and you're going to keep growing because of that spell, so…" **Du'grel said and shrugged indifferently.

"So you brought the whole freaking store with you! What the hell is wrong with you? Is that a clerk? Why did you think it was necessary to bring him? Fashion advice?!" Terra yelled angrily and pointed a shaky finger towards a man staggering amongst the mountains of clothes that had suddenly appeared in the cave.

"**Hmm, I think that's just a customer, but I could be wrong. Shall I kill him?"** Du'grel said in a bored tone and pointed a finger towards the man. Terra jumped on his forearm with the intention of stopping him, but she only ended up being perched on his arm. She had forgotten that he was inhumanly strong. Du'grel turned his eyes to Terra and raised a brow at her.

"**So I am not to kill him then?" **Du'grel asked Terra and raised her up to eye-level with himself. His bright golden eyes really did disturb Terra in more than one way, but the thing that really got to her was the way he acted. The way he actually _acted _to have emotions when his eyes only shone an unnaturally cold aura of hate. It was like he was acting out emotions out of courtesy, but had forgotten how to do it.

"Of course not! Take him back where you found him right now!" Terra screamed with a determined look in her eyes. Du'grel bent down and set Terra back down on the ground. He directed his eyes towards the man staggering in the piles of clothes and he disappeared into shimmering air. Du'grel turned his eyes to Terra and the cold hatred was reflected off of his eyes once again.

"**Good enough for you, Terra?" **He asked in his rumbling voice and tilted his head to the side like a dog. He was really nothing like a human. That overcoat of his was covering most of his skin, but Terra knew that he had thick white scales jutting out from under his skin all over his body. It seemed like he was breaking apart. Terra walked over to the nearest pile of clothes and started to go through it to find something that would fit her.

"You're not doing this out of your good will, are you? Can you tell me your reason for bringing me back?" Terra asked and avoided eye contact. She heard the fabric of Du'grel's coat shuffle and jerked her head towards him. He wasn't attacking her as she feared him to be doing; he was just sliding against the wall to sit down. His coat slid off of his leg for a second and Terra noticed that he had white scales the length of her index finger jutting out through the fabric of his pants. Her doubts about the coat being alive were confirmed as it hurried to slide back up to cover his leg. She had reasons to doubt and fear him, but she couldn't help but feel sorry for him.

"**I have a reason… More than one actually… Find a set of clothes that fit you and I'll tell you what I want you to do… Well, you won't do it if I don't explain a few things first, so I should probably do that first… Anyways, find some damn clothes and I'll tell you… stuff…" **Du'grel's voice faded away and he rested his head against the rock wall. Either he just passed out or he needed to rest for a while, but whatever he was doing Terra didn't see the light of his eyes shining through his eyelids, like it usually did.That couldn't be good. According to him, she would return back to being a stone statue if he died within the next five days. It was not like Terra could do much to keep him alive; he was as alien as they come.

Terra searched for clothes as Du'grel sat there leaning against the wall, while his mutations gradually disappeared and he started looking human again. Terra thought that he must be sleeping and found a hooded sweat shirt that was clearly too big for her and a pair of baggy sweat pants. He had said that she will be growing as much as she would have if she would not have been suspended in stone for three years, so choosing something she could grow in without it getting tight was a good idea. She would choose a more appropriate costume when she would finally get out into the world. She was kind of anxious to see how much would she grow. She had been a scrawny teenager without any sign of breasts (the mosquito bites on her chest did not count) so she was anxious to see how much she'll grow. At least she hoped she would grow… but there would not be anything she could do if she didn't. Plastic surgery was… a last straw.

Terra stretched in her new attire to see if it hindered her in any way and heard her stomach grumble before the feeling of hunger kicked in. Yeah, there was that. She would have to eat constantly to keep up with her body's need for nutrients. At least Du'grel had been smart enough to change her metabolism with some spell, so that she could extract more nutrients from whatever she ate.

**The T-tower**

"Damn it! I should have known!" Robin yelled in frustration and hit the table with several documents and blueprints laid out in front of him. A few of them slid down to the floor, but he didn't care. Numerous holographic screens were hovering in front of him were showing several statistics and video feeds, but right now Robin was solely focused on a single one. It had a gritty video recording playing on it that he had found on the net. The images had to go through several hours of visual rendering before Robin could make out the small figure in front of the tremendous white dragon. He had become interested when he noticed that it looked like the figure was talking to Du'grel, even though he was supposedly an alien.

"Slade…" Robin hissed through clenched teeth. The figure that was talking to the tremendous head of the white dragon without a hint of fear was definitely Slade. It should have been obvious that someone like Du'grel couldn't accomplish such an elaborate scheme on their own. From what he had seen of Du'grel Robin knew that he was cunning, cruel, knew unconventional spells and had powers beyond comprehension, but he was not especially intelligent. He answered problems using violence and his powers. The situation with Melvin was proof of that.

"You deserve to be hung for doing this, Sla – " Robin's eyes had not left the screen for a second and what he saw now shattered the theories he had about a reason for all this. The dragon had just spat something bright out of its mouth and then started its flight towards the T-tower and what Robin saw just before the camera turned to follow the dragon shocked him to the core. It was Slade being engulfed by white flames and trashing around like he was screaming in pain while trying to put out the flames. Did Du'grel turn on Slade and follow his own plan, or did they even know each other before in the first place?

"DAMN IT!" Robin screamed in frustration and slammed both of his fists on the table. The table made a loud crack and split in half straight from the middle. All of his documents, all of his research, were laid out in the ground in total disorder. The situation was sorely ironic. Robin thought he felt a cold breeze graze his neck and swirled around hoping to see Du'grel, or just someone he could beat up. He saw nothing but a room with newspaper clippings and several other kinds of leads leading to Slade spread out on the walls and on the other tables in the room.

"**Which is it that gets to you: The fact that I finished something you had been unable to, or that I took away the object of your obsession?" **Robin heard a rumbling voice taunting him from a direction he could not determine. He hoped it was not from inside his head, since then there wouldn't be anything for him to beat.

"Where are you, Du'grel? Why are you doing this? What do you think you can accomplish by doing this?" Robin asked in a voice he had to force to stay calm. He had tried not to think of Du'grel just as another criminal to be put away, but after knowing the full extent of what he had done to Melvin and up in the watchtower it was impossible. Du'grel Desham was nothing but an animal to be put down.

He was the worst kind of criminal he had ever seen when he was with Batman. His actions were not based on logic; he was only doing it for his own amusement and to pervert the world to fit the twisted image in their minds. Such psychosis was not uncommon in the criminal world, but Du'grel had enough power to actually pervert the world into what he wanted it to be.

"**Did anyone of you get hurt during my escape?" **The rumbling voice asked without a hint of emotion. The fact that he did not include the people in the watchtower into his question did not escape Robin. The waves of flames that he had left behind when breaking out of his cell had burned Hawk girl's hands badly and set her wings on fire, the worst case scenario would be that she would be unable to return to combat and that would be a fate harsher than death for her. Beast Boy had burned his skin almost as badly, but those stupid looking spandex tights had worked to lessen the damage and only 30% of his skin had to have skin transplants. The most of the damage was in the back of his body. He had not had time to transform, but he still protected Raven with his body when the fire rushed in from the white-hot room where Du'grel had been imprisoned. Robin heard a malicious chuckle void of any emotion but sadistic enjoyment.

"**The stupidity of that green idiot never seizes to amaze me. I must compliment you for being fast enough to get out of the way. I can understand Raven, Cyborg and Star Fire, but you are a surprise. You are more skilled than I gave you credit for, Robin."**

"Why are you doing this?" Robin screamed desperately towards the corner in the ceiling where he saw a slight shimmer and a faint yellow glow. What possible reason would Du'grel have to come and taunt him? Did he even have any other reason than to rub his inability to catch Du'grel in his face? Did he need any other reason?

"**If you desire to understand my existence, then ask Raven about the tale of the frozen lake, or talk to Jinx. Both will give you the answer you're looking for. One will feed your determination and another will give you the truth." **Du'grel's rumbling voice said and then Robin felt him leave. The shimmer and the glow lingered, but Robin knew that Du'grel was somewhere else, hiding, waiting to start the next phase in his plan, whatever that was. He still had no clues that Du'grel didn't hand to him personally.

"DAMN IT!" Robin screamed yet again and ignored the pain in his fist when he punched the nearest wall. He gritted his teeth and felt how blood flowed into his gloves and drenched his fingers.

**Inside Terra's Cave**

"**So, let me tell you why I am doing this. I know you have issues about trusting people, so I should start from the very beginning…" **Du'grel said and finally opened his eyes and the piercing golden yellow was as bright as ever. He didn't seem to be willing to die anytime soon. Terra swallowed the last mouthful of food and drank it down with a few gulps of water. If not grateful, then she was at least interested about his motives.

"Go ahead, if that's what floats your boat…" Terra said and tried to act indifferent, but those eyes seemed to be, and probably were, piercing right into her soul. She felt a shiver run up her spine and tried not to look into his eyes before he started talking. He was so freaking _foreign _that it almost made her stomach turn, there wasn't an inch of humanity present in his eyes. Did he even forget how to act human now?

"**I was born in a place called Azarath a long, long time ago. What happened to me two weeks after my birth is the only thing I remember of that time now, I think I remembered more before, but it is all fading away from me. What I remember is that there were people with eyes like mine and my mother's…" **Du'grel raised his right hand to his face and placed his index finger under his right eye.** "… after me and my mother was running. I remember her heart beating faster and faster while she tried to outrun her pursuers. I was nothing but an infant back then, you see, I was pressed against her chest at the time. I also remember her tripping from exhaustion and also how her heart beats became irregular and then stopped. Our pursuers caught up to us, they attacked me, and I was afraid and struck back. Most of them did retreat, but there was one that had ways to avoid the power I had back then, Cassandra Roth…" **Du'grel's voice turned into a low hiss filled with cold hate when he said that one name and he had to stop telling his story and clench his teeth. It was obvious he really hated that woman.

"What did she do to you?" Terra asked. She was very interested in the story now. Du'grel turned his eyes to hers and just stared at her before answering her question.

"**She grabbed me by the leg and threw me in a lake, me, an infant. She then proceeded to use those methods to seal me under the lake that was frozen over due to the nature of my power. All I have been doing from that moment is cry for release and for warmth, but everyone turned their eyes and ears from my pleas…" **Du'grel said without any emotion present in his voice. Terra didn't know if he stopped his story because he was going to slip something out, or if it was painful to talk about something like that, but decided that it really didn't matter.

"What do you plan to do?" Terra asked and felt another cold shiver run up her spine when Du'grel smirked viciously at her.

"**I plan to destroy Cassandra Roth." **Du'grel simply stated, conveniently leaving out the fact that the Cassandra Roth he was taking about was Cassandra Raven Roth.


End file.
